A Covenant with a Star
by DigitalTart
Summary: Ansem wasn't the only wizard to have dabbled in the magic of the heart. Sora x Riku x Kairi
1. Chapter 1

_RATED M: I will forewarn you that Riku has a dirty mouth and gets sort of drunk once. There are implied threesome bedroom antics in a sleazy hotel. There is also a war going on, and it is described in far more graphic detail than an E-rated videogame would get into._

_This is roughly in the same timeline as _Poison_, which can be found all the way the heck down the list because it was my first fic—cue modest blush. Reading it is not required, but it helps to know that Sora, Riku, and Kairi moved to Radiant Garden and ended up together. Yes, _that_ kind of together. OT3, baybee. A Covenant with a Star takes place about three years after the end of KHII—Riku is nineteen and Kairi & Sora eighteen. _

_Bon Appetít!_

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Riku sat paging through a fat tome entitled _Propulsion Systems of the Arcadian Aerial Navy _and savoring his Sunday, which had so far been spent parked on his butt in a chair in front of the fire. Most of his week had been spent on construction detail, helping to put the finishing touches on another house at the edge of the rapidly expanding city of Radiant Garden. It was—although he felt a twinge of shame for thinking it—actually _enjoyable_ to curl up in a squishy chair and do his homework come the weekend. There was a lot more advanced mathematics involved in his informal apprenticeship with Cid than he was prepared for at first, but the equations he muddled through in school took on an entirely new dimension when they could, say, aid in propelling you and your very own gummi ship through the Multiverse at absurdly awesome speeds.

Sora, by contrast, was in his customary spot on Riku's bed engrossed in a little blue plastic box that went 'beep-beep-boop-kerching' with irritating regularity, his homework assignment from Merlin on dragon identification conspicuously untouched at his feet. It wasn't that Sora was lazy, because no one who went through what he did could by any definition be called lazy, but sitting down with a book and pencil made his eyes cross. Sora was very definitely a hands-on sort of learner. He would have been much more interested in the assignment if he'd been allowed to find a few helpful dragons and get _their_ opinion on what they considered an optimal diet and habitat.

Riku, however, had developed something of a liking for books, at least the ones that had lots of schematics and neon orange warning labels and 'CAUTION: ATTEMPT ONLY UNDER QUALIFIED SUPERVISION' splattered all over the pages, and the 'kerching-kerching-kerching' was significantly disrupting his learning experience. He peered over at Sora from behind the back of the chair. "Some of us have reading on thaumaturgic antigravity to do before Monday. Can't you play with that somewhere else?"

"Nope. Not wearing pants," Sora replied, as the box tweetered his victory over whatever he had just annihilated.

Riku shut the book, stood up, and stretched. "I think Kairi was in a similar situation this morning. She remedied it without much trouble." Sora wiggled deeper under the covers in response and didn't look at him. His stack of worksheets fluttered unnoticed to the floor. "It _is_ my bed," Riku insisted, moving to stand over him and tapping the book against the bedside table in a display of exaggerated irritation.

"So? I sleep in it almost as much as you do," he countered, thumbs still flying. Riku really had no defense against this, since it was true, and Sora's bed had long since been lost in a tragic avalanche of laundry. Of _course_ Riku's room had become the default location for sleeping, sex, and just about every other activity that had a bed on the recommended equipment list. He had the biggest one, an oaken monstrosity fit for a prince that had been pulled out (in pieces) from the storerooms under the Bastion Castle proper. It was the only one on the whole town they'd dug up that he could sleep on and not have his feet stick off the end, so he got it.

Riku glanced over at the clock and tried a different eviction tactic. "It's almost eleven. If you want any breakfast, you'll have to get it now." The mention of food spurred Sora to finally pause the game and think. The bed was warm and the floor very cold, but Sunday meant fresh donuts from the bakery down the street often appeared, as if by magic, on the kitchen table. Their pink-clad, curly-haired benefactor was a very early riser, however, so the catch was that they seldom hung around long. Sora looked hard at the door, at Riku, and at his game. It was a tough call.

At that moment the door creaked open—not preceded by a knock, which meant it was Kairi, since her claim to this room was about as strong as Sora's (she put her clothes away in the closet, but her bed had been taken over by Dalmatians and she didn't have the heart to boot them out). She had a waxed paper bag in one of her hands and an impatient expression on her face. Riku guiltily started skimming the to-do list in his head for all unchecked items, but stopped once he realized her glare was directed about two feet down and to the right. "So_ra_, it's Sunday at a quarter to eleven. That means you should be…" she prompted, gesturing in circles with her free hand.

He blinked at her twice, and then pulled the appropriate activity from his mental files with a wince. "Wearing pants," he supplied sheepishly, "and on my way to the Chapel with you for the naming ceremony."

She gave him a questioning look. "Very good. They won't let you in without them. And I brought you some donuts." She held up the bag.

"Anything I should be involved in?" Riku asked nonchalantly, out of politeness, and also in the hope he would be given a cut of the breakfast pastry alottment.

"It's the welcoming ceremony for the newest of Radiant Garden's citizens," said Kairi, who had gone abruptly dreamy-eyed. "Their chubby little legs and red noses and teeeeeeeny-weeny wings.._._" she cooed.

"_Wings?_" Riku choked.

"Of course baby Moogles have wings. One of the gem specialists at the shop had her litter last week. She asked _me_ to name them all—as a Princess of Heart. Isn't that adorable beyond words?"

That cleared something up, at least. Riku still wasn't quite used to all the strange shapes 'people' came in the Garden. "They're walking, talking plush toys," he said. "How do they even reproduce?"

Sora snorted from inside the sweater he was pulling over his head. Kairi pinched her lips together and glared at him for even daring to think the thought. "I don't know and I'm not going to ask, but there's absolutely nothing in the Multiverse more precious than a pile of newborn Moogle cubs. Do you want to come? I'm sure the proud parents would be happy to have you there."

"They're pretty darn cute, Riku. And fuzzy. Super fuzzy," Sora said over his shoulder, now moving on to pulling on his socks.

"It was only idle curiousity. You two go on, really," he said, and gently prodded the now-clothed Sora in the direction of the door. Riku's interest in infants, human or otherwise, only extended as far as it took to keep them from drooling on his shoes. He usually found it best to smile vacantly and nod at appropriate moments whenever Kairi's maternal instincts came to the fore. They tended to make her giggle and coo a lot and generally behave in what he considered a very uninteresting fashion. It didn't help that small children and adorable woodland creatures stuck around her with an almost magnetic force. It was apparently a side effect of Princesshood, lingering on despite the fact that she'd spent most of her formative years living in a rickety mansion in dire need of a paint job and playing with two boys whose idea of impeccable manners was refraining from putting noodles up their noses at the dinner table.

"Whatever you want," she said, shrugging, and began moving toward the door. "We'll see you later."

Riku cleared his throat. "Do I still get donuts?" he asked.

Kairi sighed (but smiled through it), fished around in the bag for something with gooshy lemony stuff in it, and placed her findings in his mouth.

"I uv ou," he declared.

-ooo-

Sora and Kairi sloshed their way through town and its spring-shower puddles to the rope bridge that spanned the chasm separating the residential areas from the Bastion Castle on its island of stone, which, to this day, no one actually wanted to _live _in. The bridge was the quickest way to reach the upper levels of the improbable structure, and crossing it was either terribly fun or simply terrible, depending on the wind speed and one's personal opinion on heights. Sora and Kairi always ran across for maximum bounciness.

Once on the opposite side, they picked their way around hibernating cranes and bulldozers wrapped in sheets of heavy plastic and slipped into the castle through an inconspicuous servants' door. The warmth and damp inside rolled over them like a wave, and as soon as the door clicked shut, coats, hats, and gloves were gratefully peeled off and tossed onto the rack hung from the wall. The upper stories had become Aerith's domain once they had been declared officially Heartless-free, and were, without a doubt, the most peaceful places in the world. The enormous generator in the basement kept the whole building warm, even in the winter, and the spring that bubbled up from the foundations flowed clear and clean. It had taken her years of scavenging old windows, planks, pots, trays, and seed to take full advantage of those resources, but she had succeeded in reclaiming at least a little of the planet's namesake. The glass-roofed hallway was bursting with tender young vegetables, herbs for the kitchen and the sickroom, and seedling trees destined for the orchard once they were sturdy enough to root in the unforgiving soil outdoors. Kairi and Sora crossed over to the last of these and squatted down next to the smallest of them, a stubby, chubby tree with a spray of five-pointed leaves on top no larger than a baby's hands.

"How's it doing?" Sora asked, leaning over to inspect the newest Destiny Islands transplantee.

Kairi poked at the soil, which was nice and wet, and ran her hand gently over the leaves, which weren't the least bit wilted or spotty. "Still pretty titchy, but very alive," she answered, standing and rubbing the mud off her fingers on a convenient tabletop.

"So how long before we can eat 'em?" Sora asked.

Kairi laughed. "I keep telling you and you _never_ remember—it takes a good ten years for paopu trees to get big enough to bear fruit. Now come on, I don't want to be late."

They exited the makeshift greenhouse to take one of the lifts higher still, pushed open the exterior doors, and walked briskly around the bend, but once they reached the Chapel it turned out Kairi's concern about their tardiness was unfounded. Last-minute preparations for the ceremony were still very much underway, and in the middle of it all was Aerith, clutching an armful of her signature white and yellow lilies and trying to play air-traffic controller to the flock of Moogles hanging ribbons from the rafters. "You sort of look like you need help," Kairi said, by way of greeting.

"Hello Kairi, Sora, and ah…yes, thanks. No, no, that side already has pink!" she called up at the ceiling, gesturing clumsily with a finger and trying not to drop the bouquets. Kairi and Sora relieved her of the flowers and brought them over to the altar, where the guests of honor were sleeping in a fuzzy and overwhelmingly adorable pile in their bassinet. Sora couldn't resist burying his face in the petals for a good whiff before joining Kairi in arranging them in the urns at the base and in a protective circle around the Moglets. The delicate blossoms were deceptively hardy, popping up in patches of dirt all over the town, and according to Aerith were said to purify the air and earth as they grew. Sora believed it. They filled the room with the smell of honey and buttery sunshine.

Sora looked up at the fluttering of wings above his head, and a male Moogle alighted on the altar, did a quick check to make sure all babies were well and accounted for, and waved hello. "Hey Monty," said Sora, who always remembered peoples' names, "How's being a dad?"

"Great!" he exclaimed. "Exhausting! Still great!"

"They are the cutest things _ever_," Kairi said, gazing fondly at them as their pom-poms bobbled gently in rhythm with their breathing. "I could fit one in the palm of my hand with room to spare."

"Aren't they though?" he agreed with pride, but his face pinched with an unpleasant thought. "Neither of you have seen Cid around this morning, have you?" he asked, and rubbed the back of one ear with a paw whose tip was stained permanently engine-grease black. "He said he'd be here for the Naming, but I sort of flubbed the Highwind-Z injection efficiency tests on Friday and…I'm afraid he's still mad at me."

"Aw, I doubt it, no matter how much he yelled at you," Sora assured him. "Funny he's not here yet," he said, turning back to inspect the rapidly filling room, "but I doubt it's cause of you. He wouldn't be a jerk to you and Opal over something this important."

"You're probably right," the Moogle replied, perking up. "Better take our places. Looks like everything is just about ready to go." He waved to his wife, a smaller Moogle with a purple pompom, who was consulting with Aerith over some small detail. "Opal! Come on, come on, it all looks fine!"

Kairi and Sora stepped aside to let her pass them, and took up their places on the side of the altar to give the attendees room to see the babies. Most of the crowd was Moogles, but there were a few humans here and there too, and regardless of species everybody was beaming for the proud parents. They said a few words of thanks to the assembled guests, short, sweet, and to the point, including to Sora personally for making their world a safe place for children grow up in, and lifted the three Moglets one after another to Kairi, who called each by his or her name for the very first time and bestowed a delicate kiss on each tiny forehead. The reverent quiet in the Chapel was sustained until the very last moment, when one baby—being, after all, a baby—began to fuss, and the others joined in, so Opal took them back for restorative cuddling and declared it was officially time to eat. This was fine with everyone, especially Sora, who had been watching with keen interest during the ceremony as the buffet tables were unobtrusively set up in the back. It was nothing fancy, but in keeping with the rest of the ceremony, the refreshments were generous and prepared with love.

Sora and Kairi were halfway through a plate of cheese sandwiches and marbled brownies when the double doors of the Chapel were thrown open with a bang. "Monty? Sorry I missed the show. I'll make it up to ya," Cid said. "But I need those two," he gestured at Sora and Kairi with the smoldering end of his cigarette, "and Aerith. Now."

Kairi set their plate down on the floor and stood up. "What's going on?" The sour smell of the smoke that came in with him made her nose wrinkle. He'd been trying valiantly to quit since Kairi had first met him, and only lapsed when he was either very drunk or very worried.

"What's going _on_ is something's going _down_. We've had huge spikes in Heartless activity at the perimeter of the Known Worlds; I was up researching the penetration point since before dawn. Where's Riku?" he asked, scanning fruitlessly through the room for a mane of silver hair. "His lazy ass'd better not still be lying around the house in his underwear."

Aerith politely jostled her way to the front of the room, shooing hovering Moogles out of her path. "Do we know who's behind it? Has Leon called a cabinet meeting?" she asked, tensing. She hadn't raised it, but her voice carried through the sudden and uncomfortable silence to every corner of the room.

"No, we don't, and yeah, he did, that's why I'm here. The usual suspects are all accounted for, this is somebody new. Yuffie and Riku are the only ones missing before we can start the briefing. Anybody seen 'em?" he called out to the assembled guest. There were negative mumbles from the crowd, until somebody at the back shouted that he'd seen Riku heading out of the apartment towards the center of town.

Aerith turned to Monty, who had been perched on a stool near the dessert table with one of the babies in his lap. "I'm sorry we had to bring bad news to such a happy occasion. We'll have to see you and the babies later."

"Don't apologize," he said, with some authority, and others nodded in agreement. "I'm just happy any of you could attend, even for only a little while."

"Thanks," Kairi said to him, and walked over to put her hand on the heavy doors. "I'll find Riku and meet you down there," she said, addressing the other committee members. "I _really_ hope this isn't as bad as it sounds."

-ooo-

Riku stuck with the book for another hour after they left, but his neck began to complain, and sensing a weakening of the battle lines between mind and matter, his stomach joined in. A donut wasn't very filling. There was food in the kitchen to be made, but that was not in keeping with the theme of this Sunday, which had begun at a gloriously tardy ten o'clock in the morning and was continuing with him still in his pajamas two hours later. The novelty of this was wearing somewhat thin, however, and it was probably time to wash, possibly to shave, and if he was feeling really, really motivated, find some pants that weren't fuzzy and plaid. The sunlight flowing into the room was really too enticing to resist for long, considering how rarely it deigned to peek through the cold, misty rain that was the Garden early in springtime.

Riku set the book aside and got up to make himself presentable to the rest of humanity (and various other sentient creatures too numerous to list). Once properly attired to face the day, he stepped into the sunshine. The day had become unseasonably warm and the streets were bustling. Greetings were tossed his way in the form of words, waves, or simple smiles; he returned every one he caught. It was hard to believe that less than five years ago this place had been a barren ruin.

The survivors of Radiant Garden had trickled back slowly from every corner of the worlds, wearied to the bone. There were many small knots of people who had believed themselves to be the last, ready to give up hope, until they returned to find others, many others, who had mistakenly believed the same. Almost everything they remembered was gone, but still, they had the memories, and each other. The rows of brightly painted houses had been leveled, the sculpted fountains smashed, the libraries and museums burned, and even the rich black loam around the castle blasted away to leave the bedrock naked to the sky. That had been the ultimate violation; it was destruction so total as to prevent even a single blade of grass from sprouting where once there had been greenery so lush and well-kept it had given the entire world its name.

It was the only world not fully restored when the doorway to Kingdom Hearts had been locked. Some said it was penance, others a warning. Rebuilding the Garden to its former glory would take lifetimes upon lifetimes, but it would be done, one seedling at a time, for all those who had fallen and those yet to be born. The mourning for the loss would never really end, as long as that day was still held in living memory, but it had been almost fifteen years since the fall and even the most grievous wounds had healed, though leaving behind their scars on survivors inside and out.

Not all citizens of the rebuilt Garden town were natives. Some who had fled settled into new lives on other worlds, and a few of those who chose to return to their homeland brought back husbands, wives, or children. King Mickey had sent many mages, architects, and other tradespeople on permanent assignment to help with the reconstruction. There were some (like Sora, Riku, and Kairi) who had escaped when their own stars had been snuffed out and found that home, once restored, wasn't quite the same. There were wanderers, sages, explorers, and traders, who were welcomed. Not all were human. It was a delicate balance, but somehow, it _worked_. Radiant Garden was a living, breathing city again, growing more vital every day. Having three Keyblade Masters, one of who was, coincidently enough, their own Princess of Heart, gave the people a feeling of hope and security.

Riku found that people he'd never met knew his name and what he'd done; that they looked up to him as an example to be followed, as a _hero_, no matter how inadequate he personally felt he was in this capacity. The naming ceremony was only the tip of it. They got piles of invitations to those sorts of events, all three of them, many issued by individuals they'd never even met. People he passed on the street would ask for his autograph and refuse to let him pay for things. It was, at times, very unsettling.

Fortunately, there were some people who could be trusted to treat him like a normal human being, and he spotted one of them sitting at a lantern-bedecked lunch counter stuffing her face with noodles. "Hi, Yuffie. Enjoying that?" asked Riku, and sat down on one of the stools next to her. She paused with a mouthful of halfway in and halfway out, looking like nothing so much as a surprised cuttlefish**. **

"Not enough pepper," she said, after noisily sucking in the strays. "I can still feel my tongue. Man, Land of Dragons my _ass. _If I'm not breathing fire halfway through…" she mumbled, and licked the gravy off her lips. The aromas rising from the open kitchen at the back were overpoweringly good, Yuffie's masochistic tastes in seasoning nonwithstanding. Riku ordered himself a bowl and dug in after it was set down in front of him. "How's it going with you?" she asked, precisely at the moment Riku's mouth was otherwise occupied with chewing a piece of chicken. She didn't wait for him to finish and answer, but plowed ahead in standard Yuffie fashion. "Because it's not going so great with me. See this?" she said, pointing with her chopsticks to a bruise on the back of her arm. "Cid _threw a wrench _at me! The shocking injustice of it all just wiped out my ninja reflexes. And I mean…yeah, it was a pretty dinky wrench, but come on, can you believe that? Yuna and I were minding our own business, and he just—"

"Interesting you would mention that," Riku said, once his mouth was no longer full of noodles. "Cid was screaming about somebody lifting his silver lighter yesterday. From a locked drawer. That only a Keyblade Master or somebody eight inches tall with the power to teleport could possibly have gotten hold of."

"Really?"

"Did you ever notice that Kairi, Sora and I don't smoke?"

"Good for you. It's terrible for your lungs," she said brightly, and went back to shoveling noodles into her mouth with single-minded purpose. Riku didn't feel like pressing the point, and returned his attention to his own lunch. The Gullwings simply liked shiny things and Yuffie liked watching Cid's face turn progressively deeper shades of red, and if the four of them were cornered and threatened creatively enough the vanished items tended to reappear in short order. They tended not to hassle him much, in any case, since the only pretty baubles he owned were the ones that snapped onto the end of his Keyblade. No matter how itchy their fingers, _those_ were tacitly understood to be totally off limits.

"Yanno, you never answered my question," Yuffie said abruptly.

"Question?" Riku asked. For Yuffie, the thread of a conversation frequently unraveled, or found itself in knots. Riku chose a loose end and yanked. "You mean 'how's it going?'"

"Yeah, how is it going? You know how people say that and don't actually want to know? I want to know, because whenever I ask you it's practically guaranteed to be interesting, not 'I'm having trouble balancing the reconstruction budget this quarter', or 'I can't find any hen's teeth for a decent price these days' or—hey, isn't that Kairi?" Yuffie said, standing up on the crossbar of the stool and squinting over Riku's head.

"She was supposed to be down at the Bastion Chapel for a while cuddling Moglets…I don't—"

Yuffie cut him off, sure in her identification of the figure pushing through the crowd. "Thaaaaaat's Kairi, alright. She looks kinda pissed. If you need a quick out, I'm your ninja."

"No thanks, Yuffie. As a mature adult I prefer to face the consequences of my actions. And I'm ninety-nine percent sure I didn't do anything this time."

"Yeah, shooooore, " she huffed, and plopped back down on the seat.

Yuffie was right—it was Kairi, slightly breathless from dashing through the square and shouting Riku's name. Hollow Bastion's infrastructure still had a definite patchwork quality to it, and things tended to break down, leak, crack, collapse, or (rarely) explode on a semi-regular basis. As a now-official member of the Restoration Committee, he was technically on call to help deal with it, but…it was _Sunday. _"I'm off duty, Kairi," Riku said lightly, when she arrived at the noodle counter, chest heaving. "Hours for Saving the World are 8am to 6pm Monday through Friday."

She didn't smile. Not even a little. A small red warning flag popped up in his head. "Keyblade Masters are never off duty," she said flatly, without any hint that she was acknowledging the joke. Yuffie paused with a pile of noodles en route to her mouth as the atmosphere in front of the stand chilled. _Pop_. Second flag. Kairi had seen a lot of strange, dangerous, terrifying things since that night on the beach four years ago, and if something had managed to shake loose her sense of humor, the situation was dire indeed.

"That bad?" Riku said, with a sinking feeling that his day off was going to be over within the next ten minutes.

"Possibly 'like a new Maleficent' level of bad. Meeting in the War Room as soon as everybody gets up there. "

"Me too?" Yuffie asked, forlornly eyeing her unfinished noodles.

"All senior board members. Chairman's orders," Kairi replied.

Yuffie looked at her, then at Riku, then in the direction of the ramshackle castle on the hill.

"Well…fuck," she said, summing up the situation with uncharacteristic brevity.

* * *

Author's Note: This fic is _unbetaed, _so please, for the love of muffins, point out any stoopid tYpoez or inconsistencies you may have found if you're going to leave a review. I hate posting stories with errors in them. It's like coming to a party with your fly unzipped! :B


	2. Chapter 2

Riku tried getting more specifics out of Kairi, but since she had no more to give, he gave up and trudged alongside her up the ravine path to the castle in silence. Even thinking about that woman still made Riku shudder a little. Evil fairies were somewhat more lax about staying dead than your average megalomaniac, but Yen Sid had spent weeks ripping out the resurrection spells she'd left behind and had assured them all the witch was really, really, _really_ gone this time. But that didn't mean an end to the problems with the Heartless; no, they could not be so lucky. Without a hand to guide their wild hunger they were much easier to overcome, but no one believed for a moment that the power vacuum would remain unfilled forever. Most of the witches and wizards found throughout the worlds, no matter how personally unpleasant they were, had at least developed enough sense to keep well clear of the Heartless. Keyword being 'most'.

It had been exceptionally quiet in the recent months. All three of them had almost come to believe the late homework and bad hair days and other such petty crises would last and last. They were comfortable and predictable, signs they were just regular teenagers after all. It was probably this pretense that had kept them all sane, since what they _really _were were three battle-tested soldiers fighting a war with no end in sight, liable to being called to the front at a moment's notice—like today. This was the reason Radiant Garden and not Destiny Islands was home for them now. Their parents couldn't (or wouldn't) understand the calling that pulled them into mortal danger again and again and again. They were, as far as they could guess, actually _winning _the war_, _but it would be a long time before that victory was total, and even then it would be a fragile thing. This was what their lives were now, but it forced them to savor the moments most people took for granted.

Kairi pulled open the heavy door that lead to the first level of the castle. The floor was still a mess and patched over with scrap metal grating that made any visitors announce themselves loudly with the noise of their footsteps. The door of the War Room swung open before they reached it, and Cid ushered them inside. Riku slipped into the room behind Yuffie and Kairi, and they took the last three chairs at the large oval table. The rest of the Restoration Committee was already seated: Leon, chairman, acting president of Radiant Garden, leader of the Self-Defense Forces, and whatever fifteen other titles he held at any given moment; Aerith, director of public health, minister of agriculture, and volunteer party planner; Cid, transportation and communications specialist and brewmaster; Merlin, who refused to accept titles of any sort but was deferred to because he seemed to know something about everything; and Scrooge McDuck, chief financial officer and the Committee's primary private investor. Sora, of course, was there as well. There was a small pile of brownie crumbs in a napkin in front of his seat, but even so he looked wilted and unhappy. Chocolate was small consolation in the face of_ this_ news.

Leon's military background died hard, and he had insisted on remodeling one of the castle ballrooms into a command center for the on again/off again war with the Heartless. It was a step up from the chalkboard and packing crates that had served them in the early months of the Hollow Bastion restoration—the walls were plastered with maps of the Known Worlds crisscrossed with threads of various colors delineating navigable routes and stuck full of pushpins indicating relative levels of Heartless activity. Up until this morning, most of the map had been a nice, pleasant sea of grassy green. But in the upper left corner, clear off the map, was a red pin now jammed deep into the plasterboard with a thick ring of yellow blazing around it. It was bad, but at least it wasn't the black pin Riku and Kairi had half expected. Equal amounts of vigilance, skill, and luck had seen to it there had never been a need for a black pin since the day they pasted up the maps.

Leon cleared his throat and slapped a fistful of papers on the table, looking even grimmer than was usual for him. "We have a _situation_," he said, the word weighing heavily in air, a quaint military euphemism used when there was a good chance innocent people were going to die. "The pattern of reports we're getting indicates the original infiltration point was not from any of the known Heartless territories_. _This is all Cid and I found on the world in the lab archives."

Everyone at the table rose and pushed aside chairs to get a look at the papers. The file was extremely brief and the printouts yellow with age, containing only some brief notes and black and white photographs of a bustling city and a large airship soaring through the sky over a hillside. Aerith riffled through them, picked one up, and began reading aloud from the handwritten notes she found jotted on the back: "'_Highly developed_. _Magic and technology advanced as Garden, possibly more. Royal Academy experiments similar to our own, but findings diverge. Fascinating. Further academic exchange likely very profitable!' _I…think this is Ansem's handwriting," she said hesitantly, examining the bold flourishes of the pen (and dried spots of melted ice cream that were even more telling). "It's dated four months before the evacuation. This can't be all there was?"

Cid coughed, looking cross. "I looked all morning, and hard copies are all I got. Ya'll remember the Crimson Jazz that got loose in the data vaults?" he said, and withdrew one of the backups tapes from the pocket of his vest and tossed it onto the table. It was rather abbreviated—in that about half of it had melted into a slick black puddle of plastic.

"Did anyone ask the Queen to look in her library for more?_" _Sora asked.

"I did," Merlin said regretfully, "but the Castle librarians' search yielded even less fruit than our own. It's precious little, but we can deduce this: if Ansem the Wise was impressed enough by their wizardry to attempt contact with them, they must be truly powerful magicians."

"But one of them was dumb enough to start playing footsie with an army of pure and unrelenting evil that could turn on you at any moment. Seriously, don't these people _learn?_" Riku observed acidly.

"Great power can be difficult to refuse, no matter what the cost," Merlin chided, and like many of the nuggets of wisdom he distributed, it had an uncomfortably personal sting. Riku sat back in his chair, looking vaguely contrite. "The fact of the matter is that they may not even be aware of what power it is they hold. The world is so isolated the first wave of Heartless Xehanort unleashed may not have reached them."

"But then how did the Heartless get all the way…?" Sora mumbled, puzzled, gesturing vaguely at the map. "All that is empty space. They don't like crossing empty space."

"The same way they first came here," Aerith answered quietly, her hands folded stiffly in front of her and her attention fixed not on Sora or on any of the faces at the table, but into tarnished and painful memory. "Someone intentionally opened a Keyhole, and gave their Darkness form. It could be like the fall of the Garden all over again."

"That's what we're afraid of. Everything you've accomplished," Leon said, tilting his head in Sora's direction, "could be undone in a matter of months. Worst case scenario is this: whatever control they have over the Heartless begins dissolving, with the lesser mages falling first when their servants sense the tide is turning. Very quickly, in a matter of weeks or even days, the exponentially multiplying Heartless create a critical mass that topples any more powerful opposition. Once they have drained the world dry and moved on, we would be facing not a handful, but an _army_ of Heartless sorcerers at least as skilled as the best of Maleficent's allies, and possibly their Nobodies as well."

Merlin raised a calming hand to reassure the stricken faces around the table. "But we're not there yet," he added. "If the wizards controlling the Heartless can be awakened to the danger, or, as an absolute last resort, eliminated, it should still be within our power to contain the Heartless released."

"I'll start packing," Sora said.

"Me too," Riku seconded.

"And me," Kairi thirded.

"How unexpected," Aerith commented with a faint smile. "I think Leon and I ought to pay a visit to Olympus to see if we can coax some divine intervention out of Zeus and Hera, should things get…out of hand."

"One more thing," Leon said. "Cid and Merlin are staying here to coordinate operations, but the world is so remote you may not be able to get a message out once you enter the GBLI sector. If we don't hear from you in two weeks, we alert the King." Sora, Riku, and Kairi all nodded in silent acknowledgement. Leon conscientiously did not mention what he would alert the King _of, _which was that he should start looking for a new Keyblade Master or two as quickly as possible.

-ooo-

Any warp point established between Radiant Garden and the new world by Ansem or his apprentices had long since dissolved, and that meant the long way_. _The vast space between the worlds was only a vague sketch on the wall of the War Room and a set of coordinates plugged into the ship's computer that they had found engraved on a flattened and brittle nav-gummi in Ansem's files. There was nothing in the emptiness the Heartless desired, so nothing impeded the long flight but patches of rocky debris spinning through the nothingness, the final testaments to the failure of one of their predecessors uncountable years past. The shattered worlds were so old not a whisper of their history remained, nor did the name of the Keyblade Master who had presumably died defending them.

It was on these quiet journeys between stars that they felt their ignorance the most keenly. Nobody knew how big it all really was, not even its King. Every world discovered opened new roads into the unknown, the roots and branches of an infinite tree. It was the unpleasant reality of a Keyblade Master's life that he or she could hardly ever make their aquaintances with a new world that was healthy and whole—it seemed everywhere they went the Heartless had gotten there first. Sometimes it felt like they multiplied faster than they could be slain, tough and tenacious as roaches scuttling through the walls of an old tenement, that burrowed into cracks and crevices when the brilliance of the light seared their eyes.

As the ship neared its destination, the brittle anticipation of a difficult fight and the intense curiousity about the new world they had glimpsed in the photographs soared and mingled together. Now only hours away, they traded in their old clothes for something more suitable to the local tastes—Donald had kept a 'Don't Mind Me' spell going that forced the natives to overlook the fact he was a huge talking duck, but when the dominant paradigm was human it was easiest simply to change outfits. Kairi looked quite pretty but rather uncomfortable in her lavender ankle-length dress, and complained loudly over the unfair masculine advantage of being able to fight Heartless without wearing petticoats. Sora and Riku could get by in plain button-down shirts and dark pants, although there was much sighing over the new world not having invented the zipper yet.

The gummi ship's teleportation spell brought them down beside a dirt track that wound through the foothills of a majestic mountain range, its peaks still frosted with the remnants of winter. The breeze swept down that faint scent of snow from higher altitudes, but in the sunshine the air was only chilly enough to be pleasantly crisp. The path meandered lazily across the ragged grass and bunches of early and eager wildflowers until it terminated in a large town in the valley below, split in two by a sinuous silver line peppered by the dark dots of boats traveling to and fro.

The tableau was flawless, a landscape fit for a painter's masterpiece, with no outward sign Darkness had ever touched this world—but that meant little. Years of battling their implacable enemy had honed their senses to razor sharpness, and far, far away could be felt the sickening pressure of the Darkness straining against the boundaries of the world, waiting for hope and courage to fail and give it passage. It was an unpleasantly familiar feeling, that jarring dissonance between the beauty before their eyes and the horror that lurked out of sight.

Kairi was the first to break the brief silence after they finished drinking in the scenery. "It's perfect. Just like the Garden must have been," she said softly. "We should drag Leon and company out here for a picnic when this blows over."

"Picnic? Leon?" Riku scoffed in mock derision. "You're a cruel woman, Kairi. Who knows what all the flowers and sunshine and tiny sandwiches might do to him. Could be _fatal_."

"I'll take that risk," she said impishly, but the banter sounded forced to both their ears, like laughing too loudly while walking in the dark, and it melted away as quickly as it had surfaced. Kairi took a step away and hugged her arms as if the cool breeze, or a chill more sinister, had suddenly knifed through the fabric of her sleeves. "You can feel them out there too, can't you."

"Always can," Sora said, the seasoned veteran reassuring the greenest of his troops. "But I try not to think about it until I have to." He knelt down to pluck one of the nameless flowers, a blue one with a spray of thin petals emanating from a dark center, and tucked it behind her ear. "Don't worry, Kairi. We'll figure out what we have to do, we'll do it, and then we can come back here in a month or two loaded up with sandwiches. Easy."

Riku looked askance at Sora. "When has saving the world ever been _easy_?" he asked incredulously.

"Well, plain old me has figured it out at least a dozen times by now, so it can't be that hard," Sora replied, shrugging, and he stepped off down the path with his hands stuffed in the pockets of his thin coat.

Riku and Kairi exchanged looks. "He wasn't kidding, was he?" she asked. Riku shrugged his shoulders and followed after Sora, wondering that himself. Sora was as transparent as the water in the pristine lakes in the mountains surrounding them, but…sometimes that very clarity masked how deep the water truly was.

-ooo-

About two hours of easy downhill hiking past mossy stone walls and flocks of newly shorn sheep brought them to a real road. The painted signpost hammered into the ground beside it read:

_Welcome to_ _Market Chipping—try our éclairs!_

Traffic was light, and mostly of horsedrawn carts, although there were a scant handful of boxy automobiles puttering over the brick. Squadrons of one-man airships like enormous mechanical dragonflies buzzed by overhead in tight formation, red and yellow flags flying from their tails. The closer the trio approached the outlying buildings, the thicker the bustle of people got. Sora grabbed hold of Kairi's hand, and they strode ahead like a wide-eyed country couple, arm in arm, while Riku hung back and kept his eyes open. Almost beyond the range of their hearing, further into town, was interwoven the rousing clamor of a brass band and the shouts of a joyful crowd. The town was full to bursting with soldiers, a danger sign under normal circumstances, but the people didn't have the look of paranoia or haunted defeat that marked a town overrun with Heartless. It was quite the reverse—the tone of the conversations they caught was feather-light, and the laughter real and unforced. The blue-clad soldiers in the streets wore spotless uniforms and debonair smiles for the breathless girls hovering at their elbows.

Sora decided their first objective was to gather information on the level of Heartless infiltration, and as a corollary perhaps find some lunch, since the sun proclaimed it to be well past noon and they were all heartily sick of the canned junk that masqueraded as cuisine aboard the gummi ship. They squeezed into a bustling café at the outskirts of the town square, and while Riku ordered them some food, Sora got to work. He liked to listen and liked to talk, and within minutes had smiled his way into the middle of a small knot of the locals bursting with gossip. Strength of heart manifested in as many ways as there had been Keyblade Masters, and here he was utterly in his element. His innocent smiles and guileless conversation made friends of strangers in the time it took to share a pot of coffee. Sora was soon loaded down with tips on where to find the nicest rooms, the most entertaining shows, and the choicest meals.

Meanwhile, Riku flipped through an abandoned newspaper he found on his chair and tried to tune most of the chatter out. This was only the warm-up, and they weren't here to sightsee. The headlines of the paper all had the word WAR printed in them, in screaming blocky letters. The _Ingary Daily_ turned out to be a dense and florid catalog of the victories the country had won against the 'brutes who charged our borders', and although the places and faces meant nothing to him, it at least explained the profusion of soldiers. Market Chipping was mustering the boys to head out to war. The fighting hadn't been going on long, according to the articles, which was a relief. The Heartless reveled in war, whether they were its cause or not, since it teased the worst cruelties out of the hearts it touched, and set a thick miasma of confusion and suffering over the land that hid the evidence of their feasting.

It was only after Sora's new friends worked their way around to discussing the _other _things that came with the war, the mysterious shadows that lurked in the darkest alleys of the big city, in the wilderness of the Waste beyond the furthest farmstead, and in the trenches of the distant warfront, that Riku's ears perked up.

"They say…" said an older man with a bristle-brush mustache, as Sora and Kairi leaned in to hear the low and dramatic tones over the bustle of the café, "that those Strangians our boys are fightin' aren't all men. My nephew's best friend's platoon caught up with one once, on the lines down south. Looked like it was made of tar, and maybe it was, 'cause it shrugged off the bullets and bayonets as if they were no more than flung pebbles and sewing needles, swear to god. Took a fireball from one of the officers to finally torch the thing."

Kairi gasped and slapped her gloved hand over her mouth. "That's horrible. absolutely _horrible," _she muttered through her fingers, in a tone that transparently begged for more of the tale. She batted her eyelashes at him for good measure, spreading it on so thick Riku had to duck back behind his newspaper again to hide the stifled snort of laughter. The man didn't seem to notice, or didn't care, about Kairi's mediocre skills as an actress, since he happily careened off to the next one.

"The Witch of the Waste is even worse, since there's not so many miles between her and us, and I heard she's got her own damn army of them. She lures strapping farmers' boys away, and then…bam! Rips out their hearts and turns them into beasts!"

"Lars, you watch your language," snapped another man from a table in the corner, where he was splitting a quiche with two young girls who shared his warm brown eyes and curly blonde hair. "There are _ladies_ present. And anyway, Wizard Howl tops her for wickedness, especially if you've got pretty daughters to look after. Or a girl with a nice sweet smile like that." He nodded sagely and caught Sora's eye. "It was Sora, right? Rather foreign name, but it doesn't sound Strangian, and you seem like a decent enough young man, so listen close: you look after your girl after dark, this close to the Waste."

"Why? What's he do?" Sora asked, face full of real concern, and Riku sat up a little straighter to listen. Kairi's power had blossomed with years of careful instruction and bruising practice with her Keyblade, and she was nowhere near as defenseless as she had been when Malificent scooped her comatose fourteen-year-old body off the beach, but still, old habits died hard.

"He lives in a moving castle out in the mountains—you can see it on occasion when the mist clears, roving back and forth on its unnatural little legs. But sometimes he comes into town, in disguise, when the urge comes on him to hunt. He picks a pretty girl, and says his niceties to her, gifting her with dinner and a bauble or two, maybe, charming as a cobra all the while. At the end of the night he'll lead her down some dark alley, and then…" he said, pausing to let the dramatic tension tighten, and then snapping it with the loud _thwap!_ of his flat hand against the table that made his youngest daughter start and nearly knock over her water glass, "he tears their hearts out! They never find the bodies, though. As to what he does with them afterward…_that_ is not a subject for young ears or polite company."

The three friends exchanged knowing glances, and Riku joined the conversation for the first time, folding his paper over and setting it aside. "If nobody ever find the girls, how do you know it's him that killed them? Maybe they just decided to run off with somebody their mothers didn't approve of." The rest of the locals murmured at the challenge, some agreeing with his logic, and some standing steadfast with the tale-teller. Riku was fairly sure he was telling some version of the truth, since this wizard's predations matched line for line what someone on the verge of falling into Darkness would be doing, but stories weren't quite hard facts, and he himself had done his fair share of messing around with tourists back on Destiny Islands. The fact remained that the macabre glee that saturated the tales made it very clear no one speaking of them had actually _seen_ any of these villains or monsters. It felt like a little scare for the fun of it, to have those with overactive imaginations jumping at shadows for a few days until the beastly visages faded from their minds.

"Don't believe me? Hmph," he grumbled. "Wizard Howl is real enough. They've got wanted posters up all over with his face on them."

"I believe you," Kairi assured him. "We'd better be going, but thank you…not that I'd ever go looking for another man in my life." She reached out to stroke Sora's fingers and favored him with a syrupy gaze. Riku rolled his eyes and busied himself with fishing out enough cash to cover their check so the amusing irony of that statement wouldn't betray him.

Once they'd stepped back out into the open air, Kairi nonchalantly sidled into a side street, with the boys following her lead. "That was a juicy tip. Are we lucky or what? And Wizard Howl could be here, now, so careful about what you let people hear."

"Yeah, I figured that. But why'd you decide to be his boyfriend instead of mine?" Riku asked.

"I had to pick one of you. They seem like old-fashioned folks. Tell you what: if we finish up reconnaissance quick tonight and I let you go first, would that make your manly pride feel aaaall better?"

"Hmmm…" he said wickedly. "Probably would."


	3. Chapter 3

Now armed with knowledge but not much else, Kairi decided they ought to put a dent in the expense account Scrooge McDuck had provided for them and do some shopping for the local specialties, on the theory that a town this close to the Waste would have a good stock of supplies for hunters and shepherds looking to keep their skins whole. She found herself 'little ladied' half to death by the second store, never mind that she had taken down beasts that would've had the pretentious shop clerks wetting themselves in terror. Riku decided it was his turn to play hovering sweetheart, to Sora's chagrin, but they made out very well in either case. The haul was excellent: a collapsible lantern that would burn cool for days at a time on magical fuel, a backpack that you could stuff a sheep in and still lift with one hand, a few extremely practical gifts for people back home, as well as the more mundane adventuring essentials.

It looked like they'd be able to rent rooms in a real bed and breakfast and enjoy real food served on real plates, comforts many of their missions had lacked. It took an hour to find the place, acting on a tip they received from a grandmotherly woman in the café, but the Reba Place Hotel looked very promising if they didn't mind all sharing a room with a sliding screen. The woman who came down to greet them was the spitting image of the one who had directed them there in the first place (little surprise), but the well-worn building looked clean, and a decent meal and a good night's sleep could be had for a reasonable amount. Kairi accepted the key from the boy working the front desk, and Sora and Riku gratefully allowed him to assist them with the precarious stacks of boxes stuffed with the spoils of their shopping spree up the stairs. Sora slipped him more coins than was strictly necessary for his trouble, and he withdrew in excellent spirits, whistling his way down the stairs. The paint inside the room was peeling a little and the blankets were faded, but there were fresh flowers on the nightstand and chocolates on all of the pillows.

Riku deposited his armful of packages on the bed and dusted off his hands. "What is it with girls and shopping?" he said to nobody in particular.

"Aw, come on," Kairi said from the dressing table, as she removed her hat and the pins holding up her hair and shook it out gratefully. "I hardly ever get the chance. And that enchanted pistol was on sale. I thought Leon would like it."

"It's all coming out of the Castle Treasury, Riku, chill," Sora said. He was sitting on the frame of the open window and enjoying the last of the afternoon sun, as well as a paper cone of candied almonds he picked up from a street vendor and guarded jealously all the way to the hotel. "I wish we got to head out this well stocked every time. The trail rations Kairi found really do taste exactly like chocolate ca—" he began, but the remainder of the sentence was drowned out from beneath a panicked scream from the alley. Before either Riku or Kairi could react, what was left of the almonds had gone skittering across the carpet and Sora had dropped onto the kitchen roof below his window, barely allowing time to recover his balance before leaping off the shattered tiles to the street below. The Keyblade was in his hand before he hit the ground.

As always, the pattern continued: Keyblade Masters possessed the strongest of hearts, and the strongest of hearts drew any Heartless that could sense them, as irresistible and as deadly as a candle flame was to a moth. Hardly a day had gone by on any world before the fighting began, and this place was no exception. The Heartless gleamed like an oil slick, warping and poisoning the cheerful orange glow of the sunset that shone down upon it. It was as tall as Sora but barrel-chested, thin-limbed, and eyeless, with a toothless mouth gashed from one side of its head to the other like a frog's. It spun its head around on a boneless neck at the sudden noise of Sora's impact, tasting his tantalizing new scent on the air, and tossed away its first choice of prey when it realized the new presence in the alley was holding a Keyblade. The victim was a young woman in a drab dress—the maid of the hotel, Sora saw, since her keys had been left in the kitchen door and a woven basket of groceries flung aside into the muck of the street. She scrambled away on her hands and knees, and tried to rise to reach the safety of the door, but crumpled again with a whimper when she attempted to stand.

"Hey, you want this?" Sora taunted, and tapped the area over his heart with his thumb. "Come get it." His opponent accepted the invitation immediately and charged him without a sound, blind and ravenous. Sora neatly sidestepped the first clumsy attack, spun about, and brought his blade down hard on the gelatinous neck. The newly headless body spasmed once and then collapsed into a vile puddle of slime as the heart giving it cohesion was freed. It fluttered away from the brief carnage like a crystal butterfly and disappeared to its final rest.

Sora glanced back up at the window. Kairi had only just made it onto the roof, hampered by her heavy skirts and stocking feet on the slick shingles, with Riku hunched over on the windowsill right behind her. "Under control!" he called up at them. "Put on some shoes and meet me in the parlor. She'll probably need a healer." Kairi nodded, and let Riku steady her while she ducked back inside for her shoes and first-aid kit.

Sora turned his attention back to the maid, who was breathing hard, almost sobbing, against the wall by the door. Sora knelt down and put his arm around her shoulders in reassurance. "It's gone. You'll be fine now. Just rest for a minute and try to breathe, and I'll help you get back inside." She did as he asked and relaxed against his chest, and her shallow panting slowed and deepened with audible force of will. Her eyes roved over the gentle, comforting smile and lingered curiously on the Keyblade until Sora banished it with a brief flash of light. Strangely, she recoiled from that minor motion, and glanced over his shoulder, her eyes widening. He turned to follow the source of her renewed panic, but saw only a few soldiers and a policeman converging on the arched mouth of the alley, guns at the ready. "Thank you," she whispered. "I wish…I'm sorry." Her eyes were brimming with an apology Sora didn't understand.

He rose to face the soldiers and tell them the disturbance had been dealt with, but before he could get a word out of his open mouth, he found himself staring into the barrel of a rifle.

"Desertion from His Majesty's army will not be tolerated," its owner said, a burly and mustachioed man whose uniform seemed almost too small for his thick limbs. "You're coming with us."

"I'm not—" Sora protested, stuttering and dumbstruck, his eyes darting from one stern face to another.

"Old enough? Unlikely. I saw how you dispatched that thing. You've seen them before," he lowered his gun a fraction and cocked his head in the direction of the policeman who had rushed in with them. "Officer, if you would? It is Royal decree, no exceptions, no matter what the circumstance. All wizards between the ages of sixteen and forty were to have reported for assignment a month ago."

Sora had no answer to this charge, since it was naturally the first he had ever heard of it. Lying well under pressure had never been one of his skills, whether the situation involved a softball and a broken bedroom window or four armed men and charges of desertion. They had seen the magic of the Keyblade with their own eyes, so there was no denying he was a wizard of a sort. And if he admitted he was not a citizen of Ingary, not a citizen of their world at all, they'd assume he was insane in addition to being a deserter and lock him up even tighter. Reluctantly, not knowing what else to do, Sora raised his empty hands in the air, and the patrolman took hold of them and snapped his wrists behind his back into a pair of handcuffs with a 'snick' of finality. "Sorry about this," the man whispered apologetically, "I saw you did that poor girl a good turn, but the law is the law. I'll see to it that goes on your file."

Under other circumstances, the steel handcuffs would have been as effective in restraining him as looped strips of paper, but the restraints themselves were less of an obstacle to his freedom than the nature of his captors—they were thoroughly human, lawmen just doing their jobs. This looked bad, but nowhere near bad enough for Sora to consider trying to make a break for it. They looked too determined, too good at what they did. If he tried to escape they looked ready to use deadly force stop him, and that would put him face to face with a foe it wasn't a Keyblade Master's place to fight—men. There would be a time and place to explain himself. They'd let him go, once it all turned out it was a mistake. He hoped.

Riku and Kairi hadn't leapt from the window to give him the necessary distraction to break free without bloodshed, and if they hadn't by now they were already downstairs, patiently waiting and out of reach. Helplessly, Sora let himself be led by the soldiers at bayonet-point into the street, but stole a glance backward at the dark window before they ducked him roughly into a waiting car.

-ooo-

"That's it, I'm going to find out what's taking them so long," Riku said. "Go see if you can find that old lady who runs the place." Kairi rose to do so, and set off up the stairs to begin knocking on every door she found. Riku took the back way, toward the empty kitchen, and no one stopped him as he strode through the "_No Hotel Guests_" sign and pushed open the door to the alley. There, he found an angry maid with dirt on her dress and blood on her face, a harried policeman, and no Sora.

"I don't need your help!" she snapped at the officer. "Leave us alone!" She was leaning heavily against the wall as if she could barely stand, but refused the pleading look and helping hands the policeman offered her.

"Miss…I'm not…" he said, looking uncomfortable until he noticed Riku. "Oh…would you look after her, please? She won't…ahem."

"I can, officer," Riku said, and slipped one hand under her trembling elbow and the other on the small of her back. Sora still hadn't appeared. He didn't like were this was going. The Heartless was dead and gone and Sora was often highly distractible, but he wouldn't just walk off and leave an injured girl in the street.

The maid groaned softly. "Please help me inside," she said, and glanced surreptitiously back at the policeman. "_Now._ My…brother Jonas is likely frantic._"_ Riku bit back the question of where the hell Sora had disappeared to, picking up on the maid's frantic hint. The policeman made a series of relieved noises and backed away, leaving them alone. Riku lifted her up with ease, since she was a rather thin girl, and carried her back the way he had come.

The proprietor still hadn't been found, but the bellhop was pacing the parlor in a froth. He had the same narrow face and dark hair as the girl in Riku's arms—they were brother and sister. Riku laid her down on the sofa, nearly cracking her head against the wooden armrest when her brother elbowed his way to her side. "Anne? Anne! You lip's bleeding! It was one of the soldiers, wasn't it?" he said ferociously. "Point him out to me and I'll kick his ass so hard he'll find himself all the way in County Pembridge!"

"It wasn't a soldier," Kairi said impatiently. "I saw the whole thing. Now if you'd kindly _move, _I could take a look at her. I know some healing magic." She placed her hands on her hips and squared her jaw. Jonas waffled a bit, but moved down to hover anxiously over by her feet. He made indignant noises at Kairi when she hiked up Anne's skirts to the knee to examine her leg, until she told him in no unclear terms to shut it or she'd have Riku throw him out. Riku cut a very imposing figure when he wanted to. He cross his well-muscled arms over his chest and glared at Jonas until he finally admitted defeat and slouched over to a nearby chair.

Kairi had had much practice with field medicine, and while she was not quite Aerith's equal yet, Anne's injuries were mild, considering the situation—nothing worse than a badly sprained ankle and a few cuts and bruises. She informed Jonas of as much, who relaxed visibly. Kairi patched her up with some clean gauze and a brief spell and moved back to let her modestly rearrange her skirts. Although she was nearly healed and the pain had doubtless faded, she still looked miserable, guiltily flicking her eyes away from Kairi and Riku as if she was afraid to meet their gaze.

"Riku…why didn't Sora come back with you?" Kairi asked finally.

"He was gone by the time I got out there. And she didn't say," Riku said pointedly.

"I couldn't, not with the cop hanging around," Anne answered defensively. "If he knew you were traveling together he woulda come after you too. There were soldiers a bit down the street, see, and they came running when they heard me scream. One of them saw your friend magic away that funny looking sword. He got arrested on the spot. They wouldn't let him get a word in."

"_Arrested_? Why? On what charge?" Riku exclaimed.

Jonas looked at him with a slack jaw and wide eyes, as if he'd just announced two plus two was five. "Why? _Why_? You two didn't sound like it, but you must be real country bumpkins. The wizard recruitment order's been standing for four months at least. Takes real effort not to have heard that."

"Well we're not from around here," Kairi countered. "We really didn't know. Can you help us out a little, at least? Where's the nearest police station?"

"Police station? No…no, no no." Jonas replied, his answer steeped in pity for their naivéte. "They were military men. They won't be taking him to the station, at least not for long. I'm sorry, miss, but to be plain I doubt they'll give a rat's hairy ass where you all are from."

"Where, then?" Riku asked impatiently. "I'm not letting some government thugs kidnap him for giggles."

"They'll hustle him off to the fort at Porthaven, I expect," Jonas said. "They took our cousin's fiancé a month ago, plucked him right out of his divination shop. She hasn't seen or heard anything from him since. Not letters or tokens or nothing." His eyes were smoldering with resentment. "The King sends wizards to war and they don't come back. Not ever. Your want my advice, miss? You and your friend ought to disappear. Grab what you can carry and get out of town before the secret police, or worse the Crown's Black Servants_,_ come sniffing about for you. It's not that I don't appreciate what you did for Anne, but…with Da gone it's hard enough, and we can't afford to get on their bad side. If someone or something comes asking I have to tell them what I know."

Riku's face darkened, but Kairi held up a calming hand to silence him. "We understand."

"At least give 'em their money back," Anne reminded him, massaging her ankle.

"Course. Just a second. I can get you a train schedule too, it's the fastest way to Porthaven if you want to try to catch up with your friend," he said, and disappeared behind the desk. He reappeared after a jingling of keys and the sound of a small but heavy door closing, and thrust a battered rail map and a handful of bills at Riku. It was clearly more than he had handed over in the first place to pay for the room, but he accepted the gesture of gratitude and pocketed it with a nod of thanks. Riku and Kairi jogged back up stairs to jam as many of their new purchases as they could fit into their packs. Jonas directed them out the kitchen door and wished them good luck with sincerity but not much conviction that it would hold.

-ooo-

Riku slammed the door of the train station closed so hard it rattled the glass, and made Kairi start from the backpack against which she'd been resting her head on the bench outside. "We missed the last train to Porthaven by ten minutes," Riku snarled. "_Ten minutes._ Next one's not coming until the day after tomorrow at noon._"_

"Are you sure we can't take the ship all the way?" she.

Riku slumped down on the bench beside her and let his head fall back against the wall, so he could see the first of the evening's stars through the gap between the roofs. The gummi ship was up there too, orbiting the planet silently, invisibly…and uselessly. "I told you before, it's too risky. They've got airships and radios, and they're at _war_, remember? Once we passed through the mountains and get back into a more heavily populated area, it's ten to one they'd try to shoot us down. The best I can get is close, and we'll have to hitch a ride on the ground to get all the way there."

"Not even if we were quick?" she insisted. "Who knows how long trying to hitchhike will take? And you're a good pilot, Riku,"

"Yeah," he agreed halfheartedly. "Maybe against Heartless, when we're out in the Inbetween. But Heartless are _stupid—_they don't strategize or think, and gummi ships maneuver like retarded cows in atmosphere. I don't want to find out what kind of firepower their engineers packed onto those airships by having it fired _at_ me, not when we'd be at such a disadvantage to begin with."

"Fine. You're right," she conceded, throwing up her hands. He was the expert in this, not she, and if he didn't feel they had a sporting chance of getting through alive it was not a false modesty. They would have had to make it through with stealth and cunning if they made it through at all—blasting through the lines with guns blazing was not an option. There were real people crewing those ships. There presence was an inconvenience, but not one the dozens of nameless airmen deserved to die for.

This particular obstacle was not one they'd ever expected. Most of the worlds they'd visited hadn't evolved past sailing ships or magic carpets as the most advanced methods of transportation, and the ones that did, like Twilight Town, were happen enough to see a gummi ship appear in their skies. It was strange, but so far the Heartless had caused them less trouble than the people they were ostensibly trying to protect. Rifles and royal orders were not their usual welcome. The odd man or woman with villainy on their minds occasionally made nuisances of themselves, but never an organized group. It had never been an army.


	4. Chapter 4

Kairi abandoned her attempts to blend in and exchanged her dress in a deserted corner of town for one of Sora's shirts and a pair of pants, which were warm and sturdy and much better suited to the trek back to the transport point. The pleasant spring breeze of that afternoon had grown teeth after the sun set behind the mountains, and it nipped and tore at Riku and Kairi's exposed faces and hands. Neither had much to say on the pretext of saving their breath for the steep and rocky climb, but it was really apprehension that smothered the conversation. Sora was a good hand to have in a fight, better with his Keyblade than either of them, and his natural charm had smoothed over no small amount of rocky first meetings, but charm only carried one so far. Kairi had vague recollections from history class that they sometimes_ executed _deserters in the thick of wartime, and whether this army continued that practice she did not want to discover after the fact.

She did not feel the need to share this memory with Riku, who was lost in his own worries. He was afraid for Sora, but the aura of conspiracy that surrounded the wizard-soldiers and Jonas' 'Dark Servants' was almost as worrying. The cheerful sendoff Market Chipping was giving its soldier boys was all well and good, but something in the management of this conflict left a sour taste in his mouth. When the public feared the public servants, there was something desperately wrong.

They were only left to simmer in their apprehension until the pinprick stars had filled out the sky in earnest, for Riku suddenly noticed they were not alone in the hills. A dark shape was inching up the mountain's base on the same path they were walking. At his signal Kairi doused the lantern. The figure moved with palpably painful slowness, and it did not take long for Riku and Kairi to slip up close behind with carefully placed steps. Riku called his Keyblade, just in case, and following his example Kairi stowed the lantern in her pack and did the same. It might be a harmless traveler…or it might not.

The silhouette turned out to be an old woman struggling up the mountains with a walking stick and basket in hand. She looked ancient, past eighty at least, with thin wisps of white hair escaped from her braid fluttering about her deeply wrinkled face, and her rheumy eyes hadn't spotted them yet.

Riku abandoned stealth and jogged noisily up the gravelly switchback path, Kairi following behind. She squinted down at them in surprise, raising her cane in what she attempted to make a threatening fashion. "Who'd be wandering the Waste this time of night? Thugs and robbers?" she called out. "If you're either, I'd like you to know your luck today is as rotten as mine's been, since I haven't got anything at all worth stealing."

"We're not thieves," Riku said, not ready to dismiss his Keyblade just yet, and holding it casually ready in one hand. "We're travelers. And I think you could add witches to that list of unpleasant characters, couldn't you? They wouldn't be having the best of luck either, since I _know_ how to deal with witches." He didn't smell the taint of Darkness on her, but he wasn't ready to let go of his suspicion yet, either.

Kairi stepped slightly in front of him, pressing the shaft of his Keyblade down with her hand until the razor teeth were no longer pointing toward the old woman. "Riku, stop. She looks harmless," Kairi said.

The old woman humphed at that, looking insulted, and Riku answered Kairi's assertion in a lower tone not meant for the elderly woman to hear. "Ninety-year-old grannies don't go for strolls in the wolf-infested wilderness in the dark," he whispered. "_Looking_ harmless isn't enough."

"Well I think this one _is, _for whatever reason, and even if she is a witch in disguise, we don't have any problem with her. Not all 'witches' are evil, remember?" she replied pointedly.

"Well," she said, impatiently adjusting her shawl as they quietly debated her identity. "Since you're not going to rob me, we're both going the same direction, and it's cold, I think we ought to keep walking no matter who we turn out to be."

Kairi took another step forward, confident in her assessment of this woman, and dismissed her blade. "But it's pitch dark—you could fall. Don't you have someplace to stay nearby?" Kairi asked gently. "Even I wouldn't want to climb these hills without light."

"A place to stay? Oh, yes…yes. I asked the turnip. He might be coming back…and he might not." She chuckled to herself, in on a joke that was lost to everyone else.

Kairi believed the old woman was exactly what she seemed, and Kairi was usually good at sorting people out, much better than Riku had turned out to be. Helping her, however, presented its own problems. She was placing her trust in root vegetables, which had Riku suspecting her mind had been ravaged as deeply by time as her weathered face, and the time it took to see her safely back to whatever farmstead she'd probably wandered away from would burn hours they didn't have to spare. As loath as Riku was to leave a senile old lady as a snack for whatever predators wandered by, he was even more reluctant to sabotage their chances of catching up with Sora. "We can't wait for you, but if you can keep up until we reach our ship you'll at least have someplace safe to spend the night," Riku said at last. It was technically breaching the royal directive (although at this point it was barely more than a _suggestion_) about interplanetary contact, but he doubted anyone would believe her story even if she did blab it.

"An airship? You stole a royal airship?! Travelers indeed," she cackled, very impressed. "Pirates, more like." There were simultaneous shrugs, and neither of them bothered to correct her. "Though you are the strangest pair of pirates I've ever heard of, stopping to help an old witch in between thieving and plundering…and…and…" here she stopped, chewing on the words with distaste as if the consistency wasn't quite right. "whatever else it is that girl pirates do. Alright, then, lead on."

They did, Kairi trying to match the old woman's slow pace. She inquired as to where they were headed, and Kairi, assuming that she would think the worst of them anyway, relinquished the truth about Sora's arrest and their nebulous plans to break him out of prison. After Kairi answered to her satisfaction, 'Grandma Sophie', as she insisted on being addressed, filled the air with random observations and complaints on the nature of being old as if it was a fascinating new experience. Kairi's adoptive grandmother did that too, most of it revolving around things that had stiffened up, dried up, or stopped up, all of which she would gladly have gone on not hearing but did anyway out of respect for the aged. She offered up sympathetic noises whenever it seemed appropriate, her mind elsewhere. Sophie didn't seem to notice, or if she did she plowed on anyway.

Riku was about to suggest they use their much younger legs to their full potential when Kairi stopped short and motioned for the other two to do the same. "Listen," she said.

Hovering above the whispering of the night—the cricket song, the rustle of the grass, the owl cries, the noise of a hundred thousand tiny things scratching out a life in the dirt below—was a harsh sound, manmade, that shattered the harmony of the night chorus. It was the screech of metal over metal. The darkness in the wild was thick, and untamed by streetlamps or the friendly glow that seeped past doors and windows to illuminate a city, and the circle of light cast by Kairi's lantern suddenly seemed small indeed. None of their eyes could pierce the night to find the source of the noise. "I can hear something," Riku said finally. "Machinery, maybe, but I don't see anything yet."

The woman wilted, muttering and straining to pick out the source of the sound with her elderly eyes. "I _used _to be able to see, curse it. Please tell me that's not what it sounds like."

"It's big," Riku said, when he could just make out the outline of something ever-so-slightly less black in the vast tableau of black and blacker black. "Big and coming this way."

With increasingly loud grinding and clanking, the silhouette neared until all three pairs of eyes could discern its details. It looked like a giant's child had raided a junkyard and pasted his findings together with school glue…blindfolded. A tin-roofed shack jutted implausibly from the dome of an observatory, which was topped with a factory in miniature complete with puffing smokestacks. There was a crow's nest, an oil derrick, a quaint country cottage. Its face, for there was something indefinably _alive_ about the whole contrivance, was the prow of an ironclad battleship, the two gun turrets set in the prow swiveling around like the eyes of a chameleon. There was no way the entire mess should be moving, or even in one piece, yet here it was, scurrying toward them on four clawed legs that could barely support its bulk. Leading it was a faintly man-shaped shadow that sprang just out of reach of the crushing legs.

"What the…!" Kairi yelped, as the trailblazing…thing bounced past her then stopped next to the old woman. It was a ratty old scarecrow with a turnip for a head and a stovepipe hat, and it was obviously magical, mobile, and very, very agitated.

"That's Howl's Castle!" she cried at it. "When I asked for someplace to stay that's not what I had in mind!"

"You mean there actually was a sentient turnip?" Riku asked, staring at it. It was wearing, incongruously, what had once been a rather nice suit, as well as a toothy and permanent smile draw on with black ink.

"Looks like," Kairi said, and shouldered off her pack and extended her arm to summon her Keyblade. "But I don't think that's what we should be focusing on here, since there may very well be a Heartless wizard inside slavering for our souls."

"Yeah, that occurred to me too. I just thought the turnip was more out of the ordinary for us," Riku said, and did the same.

The castle slowed its headlong rush a mere thirty feet from where they stood, bucking like a bull trying to unseat a cowboy. Riku grabbed two hands and pulled them all out of harm's way as a piece of rusted piping as tall as he was clanged to the ground and began rolling down the hill. The castle reared on its spindly legs, shedding more metallic debris, and something else that slapped wetly in the dirt like pieces of ground meat. They oozed back upright immediately, righting twisted limbs and flattened heads with oh-too-familiar lantern eyes. The scarecrow bounded even higher, completely frantic, spinning around and around but always stopping with one floppy glove pointing far above their heads.

"Get back! " Riku yelled. "We'll be crushed if we fight them here!" They half pushed and half carried the old woman as fast as her legs would take her, and, no longer beneath the long moonshadow of the castle, they realized what the scarecrow had been pointing _at._ The previous low point of their day took another plunge.

Another Heartless was crouched low against the top of the shuddering contraption and tearing at the layers of machinery with terrifying ease, ripping off sheets of iron as if they were they were nothing more than orange peels. It was twenty times as large as the Shadows that were stalking them on the ground, and somewhat apelike, if any ape they'd ever seen had possessed claws the size of scythe blades and enough armor plating to put a tank to shame. It had been slow to catch the scent of the hearts far below it, but it had now. Like the Heartless in the alley it concentrated on the delicious strength of the Keyblade Masters' hearts first, and leapt. One of the Shadows was flattened under its feet as it landed with enough force to make the ground shiver. It took hold of a boulder, bellowed loud enough to echo around the hills, and crushed it in one fist like a handful of chalk.

In unison Riku and Kairi raised their blades. There was no need to speak; they had danced this dance too many times already. A few quick strokes dispatched most of the small, weak Shadows that had welled up before them. The huge Heartless swatted first at Kairi with one fist, who ducked gracefully, and the blow connected instead with one of its fellows, who stood in the wrong place at the wrong time. The Shadow's diminishing squeal bounced away a terrifying distance. The power in its arms was enough to chill the blood. One blow was enough to crush their frail human bodies beyond magical repair, and the only thing standing between its fist and their skin were a few layers of cotton.

Kairi wanted to run. For all its fiendish strength and size, the bony plates encasing its body weighed it down, made it sluggish, slow to react, and its tree-stump legs were bowed and unsuited to speed. With a good sprint and some luck, they could be within range of the ship's teleporter in under half an hour. They could—and the old woman hunkered down behind an outcropping of rock would be left to its tender mercy. She stood her ground.

They circled round and round again, just out of reach of every move it made, feeling the wake of its claws slicing through the air before them. Razor daggers of ice shattered against its hide, and fire didn't trouble it at all. Its armor had the organic strength of a turtle's shell and the articulation of a knight's steel plate, and it sounded like a river of smooth stones tumbling ceaselessly over themselves. Riku landed the first blow, with plenty of muscle behind it, but he only succeeded in jarring his hand so hard the hilt was torn from it and his Keyblade went spinning away into the grass. The numbing force put Riku in mind of taking a wooden plank to a block of marble, and was about as effective. He scrambled away from the killing reach of the beast's hands and recalled his weapon, lesson well learned.

There were gaps in the plate; like a knight's suit it was weakest at the joints and neck, and Riku and Kairi refined their strategy. But no matter how careless it got swatting at the two troublesome flies, it rarely offered them the more tender targets. They darted into striking radius and back out again just as quickly, their Keyblades nipping only hard enough to enrage it into more clumsy swipes.

The essential problem with this strategy was that Heartless lacked, besides the obvious hearts, burning lungs and tiring muscles, both of which would be troubling Riku and Kairi before long. A Heartless could keep going forever, without food, rest, or even air, but even allowing for the excellent fighting shape they were in, they were still bound by the limits of human endurance. To close the ground was death, but it was the only way to reach its vulnerable throat. Their second consideration was luck. Riku did not trust his, for he was burning through it quickly—after all, the Heartless had to be lucky only _once_, and he and Kairi every time.

It was in the weak roof of a rabbit's warren that Riku's luck failed. As he stepped back on it, unaware, it collapsed half a foot into the heather and threw him backward before he could regain his balance. The ground was one place in a fight to never, ever be, since it was often followed shortly after by a place in the ranks of the losers—or the dead. The Heartless lurched in for the kill, and Riku found himself staring into a pair of crimson eyes. It was a perspective he wished he'd never gotten. The Heartless raised its fist with the intention of crushing his skull. Kairi screamed, not in fear, but in anger, an Amazon's battle cry, and threw her Keyblade at its upraised fist with all her strength, but in the darkness and her haste she misjudged the distance and her weapon went sailing in an arc over its head.

Riku threw himself onto his belly, and its fist landed with ground-shaking power three inches from his ear. Twisted ankle or no twisted ankle, a fist the size of a watermelon was extremely persuasive, and Riku was back up on his feet and out of reach. "We've got to end this now!" he yelled. Kairi noticed with a twinge of concern how reluctantly he put weight on his left leg, and agreed completely.

She had neither Riku's strength or Sora's speed, but she _did _have the ancient bloodlines of the queens of Radiant Garden, a world that had been awash in magic for centuries. "Give me some room and get ready to move!" she shouted. Riku didn't question her order, but did as she directed. He drew the creature towards him with a few taunts (it didn't take much, with Heartless, since most could only barely comprehend human speech), and she began the spell to bind and direct the air. These were usually defensive, spinning arrows and blows harmlessly away from the caster, but that was not what she had in mind. That use was traditional, but Kairi, who was also the first Princess of Heart to take up her own Keyblade, was empathically not a traditionalist. Instead of the buffering winds she had been taught, she took as her inspiration the typhoons that battered Destiny Island in the summers of her childhood, whose shrieking winds stripped roofs, shattered windows, and uprooted trees. She thrust all the power she had into the spell, reserving nothing, until the roaring gale almost broke her control in its eagerness to be freed. With effort she held on, her hair lashing her face, until Riku put enough distance between himself and the Heartless. The winds ripped a deep gouge in the dirt, sending heather and shards of rock to lash the beast's face. It reared and stumbled, pushed off balance, and its throat was bared to their blades.

This time Riku threw, and his Keyblade buried itself deep. The beast bellowed, mortally wounded. With any other weapon it would have been a deadly foolish thing to do, leaving oneself unarmed, but the Keyblade _wasn't_ any other weapon. Riku recalled it to his hand and threw; again the blade reached deep into its mark. There was no blood, since Heartless were not flesh and did not bleed, but its cries of rage were ebbing and its legs going unsteady. It crashed to the ground and melted silently into a fog over the hills.

"Good aim," Kairi said, when she'd caught enough of her breath to speak.

"Likewise," Riku said, leaning against his Keyblade. "When did you figure out you could make Aero do that? I can't make Aero do that."

"About five minutes ago," Kairi replied, who was still flushed and coasting on adrenaline.

Riku grunted appreciatively. "Bad_ass."_

"Sophie?" Kairi shouted behind her. "Are you all right?"

Sophie levered herself up from the ditch she'd been crouched down in and half jogged, half limped over to them. "Am _I _all right? You two are the ones I'm worried about. He nearly got squashed like a bug. I spent the whole fight shivering in a ditch."

Kairi ran her fingers through her hair in a vain effort to undo the snarls the winds had woven into it, as if she could smooth out everything else, too. _That _had been much too close, and exactly why she did not enjoy fighting. The thrill of battle crested in her heart like a wave, while it lasted, since there was no time to think about what she was doing, only the blade in her hands and the enemies surrounding her. Once it crashed down, though, and spit her back on the shore, she felt less like basking in the golden glow of victory and more like finding a quiet spot to go throw up in from nerves. She took two deep breaths and forced the urge down. "We're fine, Sophie, thank you." Kairi answered, and her voice only stumbled a little.

With the sound of complaining metal the castle shook loose the last of the debris the Heartless had managed to dislodge. It had waited for them the whole time, and that in itself seemed as much of an invitation as any. Set in the tail of stucco walls and terracotta roofing tiles was a red door and a gas lamp above it that illuminated a globe of the countryside. They collected their packs and tried the door, which Riku found to be locked, but that was no obstacle. He had barely to raise his Keyblade to it before all the tumblers clicked obediently into place and it swung open on whining hinges. He hesitated for a moment with his hand on the weathered boards, afraid of what he might find when he passed them. Evil wizards had an unfailing flair for the gruesomely dramatic and decorated accordingly, as if the tools of their craft weren't repulsive enough: knives rusted with the gore of sacrifice, mummified things with fangs and too many legs, pots of grave dust, talismans carved of human bone. With utmost care, senses tuned to the slightest twitch or whisper, Riku ascended the stone steps.

What he found to be the pervading smell in the cramped room was not lingering death but…unwashed socks. Unusual for most wizardly residences, it turned out to be a great deal smaller than it seemed from the outside, and crammed to a perilous degree with junk. Some of it was obviously magical equipment in the same vein as Merlin's—spellbooks, twisting glass beakers, bottles of dark glass with rubber stoppers and faded yellow labels, and bunches of herbs tied to the rafters. Riku broke off a sprig, crushed it between his fingers, and found it to be nothing more interesting than mint. The rest of it was what would be found in any home: there was a set of blue china, most of which was chipped, dusty, and everywhere else but inside the china cabinet and mundane books sharing desk space with crusts of bread. Scraps of paper had descended on every flat surface like leaves after an autumn storm and been printed with a delicate lace of teacup rings. He'd been expecting a whole crocodile, but the only stuffed beasts he found were a line of dusty teddybears arrayed on a high shelf beside the hearth.

All in all, the worst thing his quick investigation yielded was a jar of very fuzzy marmalade on one of the bookshelves. "You can come on up. I don't think he's home," Riku said in the direction of the stairs.

Kairi acknowledged this with relief, and moved to help Sophie to the chair in front of the hearth, which looked as though it hadn't had the ashes swept out since the stonemason had constructed it some three hundred years ago. "What a dump," the older woman observed. "When I pictured Howl's Castle this isn't what I had in mind." She flexed her knobby fingers, unsatisfied with the job the thin heat of the dying fire was doing to warm them. "My dear, could you throw a few more logs on that? These old fingers don't care much for spring nights."

Kairi obliged, since even her young ones were feeling a little numb at the tips from hours of hiking through the chill damp. She dropped some logs into the feeble fire from the pile beside the hearth. The fire licked at them greedily…then opened two wavering eyes, blinked at her, and spoke up crossly: "The door was locked for a reason, you realize." It then paused expectantly, probably waiting for them to scream and run back out the door. They didn't. Kairi and Riku waited for the old woman to scream. She didn't, either.

Riku sat down on the very edge of the stone hearth and stretched out his long legs with exaggerated informality, mostly because his ankle was really starting to hurt, but also to give the impression he broke into legendary wizards' strongholds on a regular basis. Although Calcifer wouldn't have know it, and glared at the show of bravado, it was more or less true. "And we unlocked it for a reason. Several reasons. All of them with very sharp teeth," Riku replied calmly. He was by now pretty much immune to the shock of hearing voices issuing from things that really had no right to be talking—armoires, teacups, chipmunks, and lobsters, for example. Sentient fire barely registered on his weirdness meter.

"Nice to meet you, too," Kairi said, who was not used to having her efforts with a Keyblade greeted with sarcasm by anyone but Riku. She had to concede that breaking and entering wasn't really inside her comfort zone, but the castle itself had practically invited them in, regardless of whether or not it had consulted with any of the occupants. "I'm Kairi and this is Riku. You could at least thank us for knocking off that big gorilla…mantis…armadillo…" she gestured around vaguely, looking for a word capable of encompassing the crushing horror of the beast they had defeated, and failing, "…thing that was tearing off the roof."

The fire puffed itself up, sending a blasting wave of heat rolling out of the hearth that made them all shrink away reflexively. Like just about any ancient and eldritch creature, it did not take well to a scolding about manners from an eighteen-year-old girl. "I am the great and powerful fire demon Calcifer! And I _don't _go around thanking annoying little housebreakers!"

Sophie sputtered a little and patted her face as if to assure herself her abundant eyebrows were still there. "That was uncalled for, Calcifer," Sophie said sharply, in a voice that would have struck terror into the hearts of disobedient young boys in schoolrooms everywhere. "She saved my life and I think she just about saved yours, too. The beastie seemed very keen on finding a way in, if I'm any judge."

Calcifer glared hotly (and literally, they could all feel it on their skin), then blew an embery raspberry in her direction by way of reply. Sophie did not seem impressed with his rebuttal, and smiled a mischievous smile. "Well, since we've established you're not Howl, does that make you one of his _servants_, then?"

"I am _not_ a servant. I am a demon! I am the blazing light of distant suns! I've forgotten more spells than Howl will ever learn!" he roared, blasting them again out of pique. "But I may be temporarily assisting Howl as a term of my mm…mmm…imprisonment and I'll thank you not to bring that up again." The last part was said very quickly, like he didn't care for the words. Sophie mumbled an insincere apology, removed her shawl and laid it over her legs, and settled deeper into the chair Kairi claimed for her. "Hey…hey, hey, hey!" stuttered. "What'd you think you're doing?"

"I'm tired," Sophie answered. "These nice young people have places to be and daring rescues to plot. I think I'll stay here for a bit and get out of their hair."

"That's not fair! Now you're in mine! Wait til Howl gets home…he'll, he'll—"

"You don't have any hair," Riku pointed out. "And he'll _what?"_

Kairi was torn neatly in half by relief and concern. She knew they couldn't afford the delay of having her tag along either, but this didn't seem like the safest place to spend the night, especially given the stories they'd been told at the cafe. "Are you sure you'll be all right here, Sophie?"

"I think so. Can't imagine Howl would want the heart of a shriveled old lady like me."

Calcifer disagreed, raucously, and with a great deal of smoke and sparking, as well as empty and possibly not so empty threats to Sophie's person. Riku stood up, and ever-so-casually called his Keyblade into being so the tip was exactly level with Calcifer's wavering eyes. Whether a Keyblade was any good on a creature made of fire he had no idea, but threatening people with it had served him fairly well in the past, and it couldn't hurt to try. The demon went cross-eyed, bug-eyed, and finally doe-eyed in rapid succession and suddenly stopped complaining. "If it's in your power, can you promise she won't be hurt?" Riku asked. "Threatening people who look like my grandma is about a negative two on the one-through-ten scale of pathetic."

Calcifer drew himself deep under a glowing log, looking sheepish. Riku wasn't expecting such a thorough change of heart, but having an intensely magical weapon shoved in your face did occasionally have that effect. "Fine, she can stay _one night_. I'm not totally heartless," Calcifer mumbled. "Howl won't hurt her, and neither will I," he paused, thinking, and then said, with shades of his former acid tones: "but if she pokes her big nose somewhere it shouldn't be, I'm not sticking my neck too far out for her."

"Sounds fair enough," Kairi said, and moved to leave.

"Hey wait," Calcifer said, hesitantly. "She said you had somebody to rescue."

"Yeah," Riku said, intrigued, but smart enough not to show it. "Why do you care?"

"He got one of those giant keys too?"

"He does," Riku answered. "What difference would that make to you?"

"Neh," Calcifer said, waving off the question. "Where'd they take him?"

"Porthaven Fort. He was arrested by the military police on charges of desertion."

"Hmmmm..." Calcifer said. He hmmmed some more, and chewed on his lips, but finally blurted out: "I'll let you in on a little secret. Don't tell Howl. In fact, don't tell anybody, ever, or I'll curse you so hard your brain will leak out yours ears; I have a reputation to uphold. That door you came in isn't necessarily the door you'll be leaving by. Twist the top knob and it'll spit you out in the Waste, or Porthaven, or Kingsbury, or well…the black one is _strictly_ forbidden, but you get it. Turn the knob 'til the top marker is red," he said, and pointed at a glass disk split in fourths mounted over the door, green quadrant up, "open the door, and step outside, and you'll be within spitting distance of the Fort."

"Why should we believe you?" Riku asked, ever suspicious. "That seems too convenient."

"I'm telling you because I like to stay on the good sides of big threatening guys who wave magic swords in my face. Good insurance policy, having people like that owe you favors," he answered, with unabashed honesty. Selfishness was a wholly believable reason, although the thought of owing a favor to a demon was an uncomfortable prospect, Riku knew they didn't have much of a choice.

-ooo-

Calcifer was true to his rather put-upon word, and once properly set the front doorway opened into a quiet street of small apartments and shopfronts, this particular one belonging to a 'Wizard Jenkins', apparently one Howl's pseudonyms. The door shut behind them as soon as Kairi stepped past the threshold. Experimentally, she tried the knob again, but it had locked behind her, and getting her Keyblade out was probably not a wise choice unless she absolutely had to. Her eyes felt gritty with exhaustion, and beside her Riku tried unsuccessfully to stifle a yawn. This world was quite a few hours off the Garden's standard time, and the fight had made them start to feel it. "It'll be hours 'til those thugs make it over here, even if they take an airship. Now what?" he said.

"Depends. How's your leg?" she asked, since Riku was still limping and trying his damnedest not to show it.

"I'll be okay. And before you ask, no, I don't want a potion. They taste worse than my ankle hurts."

Kairi sighed. The last sentence was a flat-out lie, since the healing potions the Moogles brewed up for them tasted like very, very carbonated gingerale, a pleasantly sweet, spicy, throat-tingling taste only Riku had ever claimed to dislike, and that was only when they were out somewhere with a small and finite supply. "If you're that tough you can choke down a sip, since walking on it will only make it worse," she said, and dug the bottle out of the front pocket of her pack and shoved it at his chest. It was a worn blue sports bottle than had once been printed with the words _Twilight Town Struggle '78,_ and the contents glowed faintly through the plastic_. _

Riku looked at it with distaste, but picked it up, pulled the top open with his teeth, and squeezed a tiny amount onto his tongue. He made sure Kairi saw the concessions he was making, horrified grimace and all, then stoppered it and handed it back. "So do you want to try finding a hotel at this hour? Because I don't."

Kairi was forced to agree. They were sweaty, dirty, scratched, slightly bloodied, and looked thoroughly disreputable. If the people here were as paranoid about staying on the good side of the police as Jonas had been, Kairi didn't want to sleep in any hotel that would stoop to taking them as guests. Her enchanted pack fit an awful lot, tent, camping pad and blankets among them, and the temperature here was much milder than it had been in the high country they'd just left. "Come on. Wouldn't be the first time we've had to crash outside."

As luck would have it, they found a public park barely steps from the shop. A sleeping drunk had already claimed the largest bench, but a line of tall shrubs tucked in the corner looked unoccupied. Kairi stopped to tuck a package of the chocolatey backpacking rations in the pocket of his shirt-cum-pillow, since he looked like he could use some, although he remained oblivious to this small act of kindness and continued to snore the snore of the completely and utterly plastered. Kairi and Riku tossed their packs under a convenient bush. She loosened the drawstring and began pulling out the relevant items: an antique-looking tent, pegs, and poles covered with Donald's duck-scratch runes warding against danger and discovery, and a foam pad and a blanket of decidedly more modern design. The tent wouldn't bar anyone (or anything) really determined to find them from doing so, but it greatly increased their chances of an uninterrupted nap if the worse that passed by were some Shadows or a bored copper.

It came together quickly, with the efficiency born of frequent repetition, and they lay down inside with relief. Kairi rolled over on her side, so Riku's hair tickled her face, and she could reach around to wrap her arm around his chest.

"What?" he whispered, when he felt her sigh heavily into his neck.

"My back is cold."

"I know."

"Now I know what he felt like, chasing after me. It _sucks._"


	5. Chapter 5

"I _told_ you, I don't _know!_" Sora yelled hoarsely at the thin and greasy man whose gray stare had been boring into him like a drill for the last three hours. _These were civilized times, so we don't stoop to torture, certainly not_, the man had said, one Major Austen from the Ingary secret police. Despite this assertion, Sora could feel the sticky blood drying slowly on his chin from the beginning of this very enthusiastic 'interrogation session'. They hadn't hit him very hard, at least until now, fat lot of good it was doing them since he'd been telling the truth from the start. Sora had a very high pain tolerance, handy, given his job description, but right now it served only to make his captors very angry that he wasn't whimpering like a small boy who'd just been informed birthdays would be cancelled until further notice.

Major Austen rolled his eyes. "Fine. I can wait. We'll go over it again: You're a star hero from another planet who's come to save us from the very weapons that are winning us this war. By order of a king nobody's every heard of. Who's a _great big talking mouse_. Is that about right?" he sneered. Sora ignored the jibe. He had learned quickly the Major did everything with a sneer, from sharpening his pencils to drinking his coffee. It lost its intimidating effect with repetition. Sora figured his lips were probably stuck like that.

"Yeah. That's it," Sora muttered, because nothing he could truthfully say would make them stop, and talking made his throat feel scratchy. They seemed to have decided he was sticking to the story as some kind of long and torturous joke.

"That makes _perfect _sense. It's certainly a better tale than my theory of how you came to be tied to the wall in a cell in Porthaven Fort, which is that you are a Strangian spy lacking somewhat in brains but not enthusiasm. The weapon you're carrying, the Key Blade, or whatever you call it, was a prototype stolen from your superiors that you intended to use to carve out a little fame and glory for yourself. Misguided, bloody stupid, but admirable in its way," he said, although judging by his expression Sora didn't think he believed any such thing, 'and ultimately futile, since our Servants cannot be defeated. Their are ranks are thick, they need no rest, they…" Major Austen intoned on with relish, as though he'd memorized an entire broadside's worth of propaganda statements.

Sora yawned and let his mind wander, because he'd said this all before, like it was supposed to be impressive. Following that, there'd be a string of names and places he'd never heard before and military jargon he couldn't understand, then more screaming when Sora couldn't cough up any juicy details about troop movements.

It was terminally boring, and the worst point of a steadily declining week. After the squad car screeched to a halt outside the police station, and he first made the acquaintance of the thoroughly unpleasant gentleman frothing in front of him, he had been hustled covertly from bad to worse. First was a scrap of night in the local jail, which was very cold, and smelled like a forgotten locker-room laundry hamper a dog had peed on. His cellmates were all fat, hamfisted, and menacing, or thin, ratty, and menacing, and he had to give one a bloody nose before they left him alone to curl up miserably in the corner. The officers on duty thought it was all hilarious, and left the 'deserter' to fend for himself. No one in the station, on _either_ side of the bars, had any sympathy for a young man who had been arrested for shirking that duty.

Early the next morning, in the grey hours that Sora did not think deserved to be called 'morning', the Major reappeared, and he was put on a train in a private car, with a succession of sour guards assigned to ask him questions he couldn't answer and prod him with the steel toes of their boots whenever he started nodding off against the windowsill. The benches were cushioned with springs and down, upholstered in something velvety, and very comfortable. It was a unique kind of torture.

The train chugged through the countryside and onto a track carved through the mountains that had been the first sight to greet Sora's eyes when he landed. It was a marvelous feat of human ingenuity, but mostly the endlessly clattering, winding rail made his stomach queasy and his teeth ache. After another day, the mountains gave way to a vast plain in every hue of green imaginable, and the train picked up speed, only to slow again to an unbearable crawl as the reached the edge of the city that was their destination. Even with the windows in his car closed, he could smell the sea. It wasn't as though he wanted to arrive and find out what they had in store for him, but somehow waiting for it as the train inched through the web of urban signaling was even worse.

The train pulled into an unfriendly block of stone he learned was Porthaven Fort, and he was hustled off with less delicacy than the yard hands were showing to the cases of ammunition in the car behind him. They brought him into a cell in the belly of the building and locked the door. That night, he unlocked it, but stealth was not his strong suit either, and it only took fifteen minutes for his cell to be found with the door wide open. After that they went for the rope, and always made sure to post a set of guards at the end of the hallway.

Major Austen looked like he was reaching his crescendo, which in his particular case was an equal mix of spit and blind nationalistic fervor. Sora tried not to yawn again. Austen was an amateur, and Sora had been threatened by _professionals. _Frothing government officials in need of a shave couldn't inspire the same gut-freezing terror as a death god with a personal grudge. Sora didn't like Hades very much, and would be perfectly content never to set eyes on him again, but he had to admit that when he threatened somebody, he did it with _style_.

Sora couldn't answer Major Austen's vitriolic questions, which felt like they'd been posed for the millionth time, so he smacked Sora across the face again out of spite and stormed out. Sora leaned back against the unforgiving stone and wished he wasn't too uncomfortable to sleep.


	6. Chapter 6

Porthaven was larger than Market Chipping, tougher, and warier. It was also much, much closer to the front lines. The people were sharper, and often unfriendly, honed to a brittle edge by the constant threat of invasion by sea. Riku and Kairi cleaned themselves up and found a hotel in a rundown part of town, to keep away from any prying eyes, and plotted, planned, and most of all…waited. Riku made some quick calculations and came to the conclusion it would take at least two days to get from Market Chipping to Porthaven by airship, more by rail, if they were not delayed.

Kairi tried flirting her way into the Fort with a pack of other girls curious to see the sailors at work, batting eyelashes and twirling skirts with them, but she wasn't exactly well practiced in the arts of seduction, and after an abortive attempt to at least discover the layout of the Fort, was gently but very firmly escorted out. The seaman who caught her made sure to mention that security was not usually so lax, and whoever had left all those doors open was certain to be disciplined. Kairi giggled and tripped over things on the way out, to keep up a screen of obfuscating girlish stupidity, inwardly cursing her lack of foresight in forgetting to relock the doors she had opened with her Keyblade. She'd been hoping to find the cell blocks, and failed.

She had substantially less to report to Riku than she had hoped, but learned something. The sailors were well-drilled, observant, and wary, and their sidearms were in good repair. Prison doors made for barriers as substantial as gossamer for someone armed with a Keyblade, but the men guarding them were another matter. They would doubtless take exception to any escape attempts, and even Riku wasn't sure he could slip Sora out the conventional way without resorting to lethal force, or, indeed, slip him out at all. There were a lot of things Riku and Kairi would be willing to face down with Keyblades in their hands—slavering demons, monsters of legend, even a god or two, but a soldier with a pistol and a clear shot to the head could be more deadly than any of them. The corridors of the fort were small and narrow, with hardly any room to swing and almost none to dodge. Aero worked well enough against more primitive weaponry, but it was a far cry from a bulletproof vest. The Keyblade was a truly amazing weapon, but it was still a _blade_, and against the unadorned, mundane practicality of many guns in a narrow hallway, its wielder didn't stand much of a chance.

That meant the last-ditch option, one Riku especially was loath to consider: he could open a portal to Darkness inside the fort, grab Sora, and pop back out. It was Kairi's suggestion, and it sounded so simple and so easy, like succumbing to Darkness always was. The major drawback to that plan was that the ripe and beating hearts of two Keyblade Masters might call down more hell than they could handle in enemy territory, and spill Heartless all over unsuspecting innocents. The veils were thinning, wearing through by the rasp of thousands of frightened, angry, mistrustful souls. The Heartless would doubtless be near.

The allotted time of three days came and went, and as the third sun disappeared below the lip of the sea, Kairi and Riku still hadn't agreed. They were sitting on the single sagging bed of their hotel room amidst Kairi's drawing of the Fort. What was left of the notebook was still on her lap. The crumpled balls of discard ideas had overflowed out of the wastebasket onto the floor like a pot of unwatched popcorn. The notes she was taking on Riku's latest variation on the jailbreak plan consisted of a jar of droopy-looking daisies and some wavy squiggles. Riku sidled over to peer over the top of the pad, and he scowled. "Kairi…are you even listening?"

"Yes. Yes I am," she said, looking up at him, and snapping the notebook shut. "And it won't work because neither of us know how to drive an old-fashioned ambulance, provided we could jack one in the first place."

Riku opened his mouth to refute this automatically, but shut it again, because she was right. "I am out of ideas. Cleaned. Out." He pulled the small, slightly squishy gummi ship communicator out of his pocket and set it on the bed. It was as dark and silent as it had been for the past three days.

Kairi tossed the notebook to the floor with a sigh. "Riku…if he was going to call he would have already. We're running out of time…and options."

"I know."

"I'll have your back."

"My back isn't really what I'm worried about," he said darkly.

He was slouched over, folded in on himself, and Kairi could detect tendrils of real fear wrapping themselves tight around the rhythm of his breathing. He wouldn't admit it to her in words, but neither did he try to mask it in his gestures or expression. Kairi shifted a little closer, until she could comfortably slip her arm around his back and rest her head in the hollow below his shoulder. Such an irony, that the strongest and most confident of them all had also been the most fragile. "You control your memories, Riku," she said, quietly and with perfect conviction. "Don't let them control you. I know you suffered so much in there, but you learned so much too, and you can do things Sora and I will never be able to."

"What if I can't hold it back? What if—"

"You'll be able to," she said. "You don't fail the people who depend on you."

Riku exhaled, slowly, forcing the muscles in his chest to relax. He _was_ afraid of the dark—not what he might find in it, but what _it_ might find in_ him._ But it was a healthy kind of fear, and one that kept him from carelessly tipping a bottle of ink into that delicate balance of gray he held in his heart. What had changed since he had his first taste that power was that he could admit that fear to himself and not flinch from the truth, or bury it beneath mounds of self-defeating overconfidence. Dangerous tools required respect, a perpetual and unfaltering respect, but what could be crafted with them was worth every speck of effort. "Midnight, tonight. I'll leave from the room and bring him back the same way, so no one watching will be able to connect us to the escape."

She nodded in approval. "Do you want to try and get some rest before you have to go?"

"Emphasis on _try,_ but okay," he said, forcing himself to smile. Kairi set the alarm clock, as a formality, and proceeded to tangle herself up in Riku's long limbs like a kitten with a ball of string. Neither slept.

Riku slapped the alarm clock a good deal harder than was strictly necessary to silence it when it began to ring. The stars were out in their full glory and the streets were quiet. He tied back his hair, put on his shoes, and collected his gear in the cloaking blue light of the night sky. He fixed his eyes in front of him, on nothing, and pulled_, _until a thin spear of Darkness punctured the fabric of reality. The air was chilled and stale. "Hurry," Kairi whispered from the bed.

"You don't have to tell me," he said, and stepped through.

-ooo-

He would never forget the smell. It was subtle enough to drive one mad, a hint of death and rotting things whose source was impossible to place, and it burned his nose like a gust of dry wind that was deep below freezing. The cold, too, was infuriating. The air wasn't even cool enough to condense his breath into puffs of steam, but the chill still found its way through his thin shirt, past his skin, and into his chest. The mist whispered in his ears, subtle and persistent and just above the threshold of his hearing. He knew what it had to say, and tried to ignore it and the memories that welled up at its touch and started walking.

It had been easy before, cloaked first in Malificent's power and her sweet words of encouragement, then in Xehanort's body with its steel shell of Darkness. But the grip the Darkness held on him had faded with time and care, the armor rusting away to leave his tender heart exposed to anything that caught its scent.

Finding Sora wasn't difficult; that he'd done many times before. His heart shone through the mist ahead, radiant and welcoming. It looked so close he wanted to run but didn't dare for the sound it might make. He forced himself to be patient, straining to hear anything at all, scanning the horizonless view for any trace of motion. There was nothing.

He walked until he imagined he could reach out and touch the small blue star that was Sora, and pushed this time, until a tiny stream of Darkness spilled through into the holding cell and widened until he could step through it. Sora relaxed against the wall when he recognized the shape that appeared. "About time," he croaked, managing a weak and lopsided smile. In the wavering light of the bare electric bulb that hung from the ceiling, Riku could see the livid bruises on his face and neck and dried blood on his lips. The guards had tied him to the wall with thick rope, wrapping each finger wide to keep him from balling them into a fist. It didn't actually take much to restrain a Keyblade Master, just a little creativity, chloroform, and a sturdy rope. They could open almost any lock, but knots were outside of their jurisdiction.

Riku knelt down next to him, gently lifting his chin with a finger to inspect the damage. The fear of passing though the Darkness melting away beneath a sudden furnace blast of anger. "They _hit_ you?" Riku whispered though half-clenched teeth.

"Only at the end," Sora answered. His voice was slurred oddly from the effort of talking without using his damaged lip. "I think I got upgraded from deserter to spy. The guy in charge got mad when I didn't tell him anything good." He snorted a little, a tiny bitter laugh. "And after I walked out of my cell. They didn't like that either."

"Explains the rope," Riku said. "They learn fast." Rope was tougher for a Keyblade to deal with, but easy for a quick fire spell. Riku stood and began to speak the words to blast the rope free.

"No don't!" Sora hissed.

The warning came too late. The warding on the walls of the cell flared to life, symbols set in silver that had been placed in groups of three at each point of the cube. Riku looked up, and from the ceiling another circle lit up with the same white fire. Something blindingly bright with two arms, two legs, and a head that seemed to be all mouth dropped straight down onto his upturned face. It was like being suffocated by a ray of sunlight—he could feel its heat and the see the orange flashes of its brightness behind his eyelids, but his fingers didn't connect with anything solid as they clawed at this face, and he couldn't pry its grasping hands free. He stumbled backward and hit the bars hard with his shoulder. The unexpected pain made him gasp, and through the primal panic he realized he _could_ breathe. The spellform wasn't trying to suck the air out of his lungs. It was operating on another plane entirely, and the horrible choking sensation was the feeling of it sucking every drop of magical power from his being.

It lasted all of a few seconds, but felt a hundred times longer. It finally release him and floated back up to its mooring in the ceiling, and the room was lit by only the electric bulb once more.

"Sorry, Riku," Sora mumbled. "I tried to warn you. You'd better clear out for a second, cause they're gonna come check on me."

Riku coughed. His mouth and throat stung like he'd downed a cup of scalding coffee, and there was a whole ballroom full of spots dancing in front of his eyes. He stepped back into Darkness, keeping a pinhole portal open so he could hear when it was safe to return. He blinked a few times and waited for his head and vision to clear. He waited a few moments, then a few moments more. The first did, but the second didn't. He heard booted footsteps, then a door opening. Their owner paused briefly to insult Sora's intelligence, then the door closed, and the footsteps retreated. Riku drew the portal open again. "I can't see_,"_ he informed Sora, rubbing his eyes. "Everything is all dark and blurry."

"It wears off in a few hours or so," Sora said.

"A lot of fucking good that's going to do. I can't just chill out in your cell until I'm not blind anymore," Riku snapped without thinking, and suddenly regretted it. He couldn't see the look on Sora's face, but he could imagine it. If Riku had been having a bad day, Sora's had undoubtedly been worse. "Sorry…I just…I'll cut the ropes by touch." He summoned his Keyblade and prayed it wouldn't trip another magical sensor. After a few seconds nothing happened, so he took hold of the rope and started sawing at it with the sharp edge of the Keyblade. It was awkward, sweaty business with completely the wrong tool for the job, and before long Riku was seriously regretting his lack of foresight in not bringing a pocketknife. The rope was thick and strong, and every click of booted footsteps in the hallway as he labored through it made him jump. About three-quarters of the way through the first rope he stopped to shake the cramp from his arm—and discovered the next layer of magical safeguards that had been built into the cell.

"The _hell_!" Sora swore. "What's happening to the rope?"

Riku grabbed the sawn ends in his fist but jerked it back again in disgust. The strands of hemp were wriggling like worms. As Sora watched in horror, one thread found another, and they extended their ragged ends to bridge the gap Riku had cut. The strand rewove and went taut, as if they had never been severed in the first place. Its neighbors were busy doing the same. Within a few seconds the rope was whole again.

"I hate this world," Sora announced.

"Feelings are mutual," Riku groaned. "Now what?"

"Why're you asked _me_, Mr. Brains-of-this-Outfit? I tried everything I could think of to bust out before you showed up. I'm tapped out."

It took serious effort for Riku to keep his voice low. "I don't know anything about breaking out of jail! This's never exactly come up before!"

"You watched more spy movies than me," Sora said with finality, and leaned his head back against the wall. "You're more qualified to figure it out."

Riku was about to reply with something nasty, but shut his mouth. They were wasting time, and as shallow as it was, maybe Sora had a point. None of those films covered magical prisons, and he owned no laser pens or exploding wristwatches, but he could at least take a page from their methodology. First, he considered the items at his disposal, which were: a Keyblade, a few favorite Keychains clipped to a belt loop, a phial of healing potion, and the receipt from dinner that had been in his pocket. No good. He ran his hands up and down the ropes and the bolts that held them fast, hoping for some flash of genius. Keyblades were impossible to crack, bend, or dull by mundane means, and given enough time he could theoretically saw through the old cast-iron fasteners, but it would take forever. He yanked halfheartedly at the knot, which, as he suspected, was tied too tightly to undo. But when his fingertips brushed the end, they came away smeared with a fine powdery dust. He sniffed it curiously, and immediately sneezed. It was ash.

"Sora?" he asked.

"Yeah?"

"Please, _please_ tell me you still have Bond of Flame."

"Uh-huh, why? They took everything else. Guess they figured it was just weird jewelry."

Riku felt a surge of hope. Even after Sora had found more powerful charms and its usefulness as a Keyblade faded, he had taken to wearing the miniature chakram around his neck beneath the symbol of the Kingdom Key. It was a sort of memorial, a grave marker for a man that never really lived and died in a place that never really existed. And, if Riku had guessed right, Axel was about to save his butt again. The charms had no intrinsic power of their own, nothing that would mark them as anything but bits of miscellaneous junk to the untrained eye. Their _true_ value was the memories they stirred in each Keyblade Master that held them, since it was these that gave each one's weapon its distinctive powers and appearance. Riku knelt down and undid the clasp of the chain around Sora's neck, removed the charm from his own Keyblade, and threaded the links through the empty loop on the pommel. It glowed briefly and reformed into a figure-eight shape. Very carefully, Riku touched the edge to the knots nearest Sora's right hand. The air immediately filled with the smell of burnt fiber.

Sora gasped when the rope gave way and his hand dropped back to his side, half in joy and half in pain as feeling suddenly rushed back into his numb arm. "Worst pins-and-needles _ever_," he muttered, and then started pulling the knots loose with his teeth and chin while Riku worked on freeing his other hand. Sora allowed himself a few minutes to work some strength back into his cold fingers and stretch the cramps out of his back and neck.

"Ready?" Riku asked, when the rustling of clothes subsided.

Sora summoned his own blade. "Ready."

"I didn't see anything on the way in. Here's to hoping we get that lucky on the way back." Riku opened the portal and strode through, Sora a step behind. Fighting the Heartless on their home ground was always chancy business, even when they were in the best of shape, and right now Sora was sleep-deprived, starving, and sore, and Riku still mostly blind and sucked dry of magic. If they caught the attention of anything nastier than a pack of Shadows, the odds were not in their favor.

Sora transferred his Keyblade to his left hand to take Riku's elbow in his right and started walking. But without any guides, he could have been going in circles and never known it. It was sailing in the open sea on an overcast night, with no compass. After a few minutes, Sora stopped, and his fingers slipped away from Riku's arm to bounce forlornly against his thigh. "It's all gray," he said. "Everything. I think we're lost. How'd you ever find me? There's no landmarks or sun or paths or _anything._"

"Then don't think. Feel," Riku instructed him. "I figured out early that's how the Heartless find their way around. You can make your own path by reaching out with your heart. Distance doesn't matter here, only how much you want to find a person or a place.

"I don't know if she would look the same to you…I mean, I was never in position to _ask_ anyone else that'd gone after her, and I know it's kind of cheesy, but to me Kairi's heart was always the colors of the bay on a clear day. Try looking for that."

Sora took a deep breath and tried to relax. It didn't take concentration to want Kairi, since right now he craved nothing more than to be able to feel her arms around his chest and a few kisses on the parts of his face that didn't hurt. He wanted to be away from choking claustrophobia of the mist. He paced a slow circle around Riku, wishing and wanting. And then, deep in the unending grayness, he saw a glimmer so faint he wouldn't have know it really existed if he hadn't been looking. He squinted. The glow strengthened. "So…it's mostly aqua, with a sort of green sandy color at the edges?"

Riku smiled. "That'd be it. Keep walking toward it, and if you lose it for a second, find a memory of her. It'll come back."

"Hey Riku?" Sora asked, as they continued on.

"Hmm?"

"What's my heart look like?"

"Blue. Really blue, like the most perfect summer sky in the history of summer skies."

Sora laughed, a little weakly, but it still rang true. "And you once told me _I'm_ a sap."

"Still holds, you cheeseball. Keep walking."

He did. The weariness in Sora's steps faded the brighter the light before them shone, and Riku thought he could see it too, though whether the blindness was lifting a fraction or it was his imagination was impossible to tell. At times the light of Kairi's heart dulled, like a thicker mist had been pulled over it, but Sora kept his memories close to the surface, and he never lost it. Time and space in Darkness was fluid. There was only stillness and the murky light, with no beginning and no end, and trying to measure the distance they'd traveled was as futile as trying to pin down a raindrop. Still, it was undeniable they were getting closer.

The glow had become so warm and so strong Sora did not notice the faint shadow that lurked behind it, belly to the ground and claws unsheathed. Its form was as changeable as the mists it pulled around itself for camouflage, the only certainties being two eyes, four legs, and many, many teeth. It had shown uncharacteristic cunning and patience for a Heartless, lying in wait for them beside the first tear Riku had made. It did so in perfect silence, uncorrupted by a need for breath, or to stir and stretch tired muscles, and in the stillness revealed nothing to its prey until it leaped.

If his reflexes had not been ground to powder by lack of sleep, Sora would have dropped below the range of the tearing claws, spun round on his toes, and thrown his Keyblade at the precise angle required to shear off at least two of the Heartless' legs as it hit the ground. As it was, the best he managed was to shove Riku out of the way and then topple over him in a clumsy heap as the beast clipped his shoulder and robbed him of his balance. He wasted precious moments untangling himself and raised his blade, his shoulders screaming in protest and his fingers refusing his urgent pleas to grip the hilt more tightly. The toothy, boiling smoke paced them, nipping at their meager defenses. Sora did his best to keep his body between the beast and Riku.

"Where is it!?" Riku cried, his voice harsh with the panic of a warrior struck helpless, unable to defend himself. Kairi's heart shone like the sun, and Sora's white shirt was a pale blur beside him, but the rest of his field of vision was muffled in darkness. He didn't see the Heartless when it charged him, but he just barely heard the break in the whispering of its padded feet against the substance of the ground. He swung down, in the direction of the snarl, and although his strike was directed by more luck than skill, it connected.

"That was too close, Riku. Get out of here! I can take it," Sora insisted, unconvincingly.

"That's the Hero talking, stupid. You're almost in worse shape than me," Riku shot back. If he knew anything about Sora, he knew that he would not back down from a fight, and that he wouldn't give up. Riku loved him for it, and owed his life to it, but right now Sora was busily scuffing the fine line between valor and stupid bull-headed stubbornness. As it stood, alone in the Darkness with only the deadly cat for company, they would both be completely and improperly fucked. Thankfully, this was not an either/or situation, and there was another variable waiting patiently for them that had not yet been introduced to the fight. Sora hated putting her in danger, but Riku was less of an old-fashioned romantic, and had far more trust in her capability to deal with whatever the Darkness threw at her. He dismissed his Keyblade, opened a portal, and grabbed Sora by a handful of cotton shirt and pulled him through.

The doorway materialized at the foot of the bed in which Kairi had been sitting, her Keyblade laid across her knees. Riku tried slamming it shut as fast as he could, but it only wavered and would not close; the Heartless had gotten its metaphorical foot in the door. The tiny hotel room was too close for a fight, even for one person to swing, and Riku hoped desperately he had not made a serious mistake.

"Behind us!" he barked hoarsely, as the gateway flared again, pulsing until the midnight thorns brushed the ceiling.

Kairi didn't move. She could feel the wrongness in the air, the perversion and the taint. There was something pushing hard from the other side, something bigger than the usual adversaries Sora and Riku could mow down in their sleep. A face emerged from the portal—a black lion with a mane of smoke. It turned to look at her with its two hungry eyes, languid and deliberate, a predator that knows its prey has been wounded and cornered. Slime from its jaws hissed as it hit the floor. Still, Kairi did not move, as if those enormous green eyes had bespelled her and she couldn't hear Riku and Sora's frantic shouting.

But Kairi was not enchanted—she was waiting. The Heartless padded forward, until its head and shoulders were fully in the room, and it was only then that Kairi acted. The true talent of a Princess of Heart was in sealing and binding, and it came to them as naturally as breathing, their very existence serving to lock the Darkness away. But like any natural inclination, this subconscious force could be focused to pinpoint sharpness, and Kairi had been given more than enough reason to practice that skill.

She threw her essence down over the portal like a guillotine. The white heat of her pure heart cauterized the wound in the world, and the Heartless suddenly found its body in one place and its head in entirely another. The faint look of shock in its eyes evaporated with the rest of its skull. She dismissed her unused Keyblade and pushed herself off the bed to pepper Sora with welcoming kisses. Then she stopped short in front of him. "They _hit_ you?" she hissed, when she got a good look at Sora's battered face.

"That's exactly what I said," Riku supplied. He pushed himself up against the wall and reached out tentatively with his fingertips until they hit something round and soft.

Kairi gasped a little offended gasp and removed his hand. "Riku! This is _not _the—"

"Didn't mean to do that, actually," he said sheepishly, to the air about a foot from her head. Kairi exhaled curiously and held two fingers up to his face, moving them slowly from side to side. His eyes didn't follow.

"You can't see, can you?" She reached up to stroke his face, which was too warm, compared to his hand—not feverish, but like he'd been terribly sunburned. He flinched from her fingers, confirming her hypothesis. "If it wasn't the middle of the night, I'd say you were sunburned. Your face is probably all red. What happened?" Kairi asked, as she offered a hand up to Sora.

"Magic-sucking face leech," Riku said. "Sora tells me it's not permanent."

"Yeah, um, guys? You mind if…um…bed now?" Sora asked. His voice gone rather unsteady, like it had had a bit too much to drink, stumbled out of the bar, and was about to pass out in the gutter.

"Go ahead," Kairi said, guiding him forward with one hand. "On your back, though, so I can clean up your face."

Sora mumbled something unintelligible and staggered over to the bed. He collapsed backward into it without bothering to take his shoes off first. Usually this was a reprimandable offense, but given the circumstances Kairi let it slide. She loosed the laces for him and set them down beside the bed, then assembled a little pile of gauze and antiseptic on the bedside table and began to very delicately clean Sora's face. He was so exhausted he could barely gather the energy to wince when she hit a particularly tender spot.

"Has Ingary invented automatic ice machines yet?" Riku asked, not sounding hopeful, when she'd finished attending to Sora. "That spell burned my tongue." She sighed a sympathetic, maternal sigh and fetched a waxed paper cup of water, which she iced over with a tiny Blizzard spell and handed to Riku. The freezing water felt heavenly, and once he drained the cup he and Kairi nudged Sora enough to get the blankets out from under him. It was a tight fit on the bed, but they were too relieved and too exhausted to care.


	7. Chapter 7

By the next afternoon Sora had gotten his fill of lying in bed and being fussed over, and by the next morning had gotten his fill of more strenuous bedroom activities, too. The walls of the rooms were quite thin, but nobody pounded on them to complain. It was a port city, after all, and it turned out to be that sort of hotel. As they left for the day, one of the 'ladies' lounging about the parlor, a word used very loosely, caught Kairi's eye and gave her a barely perceptible nod, from one professional to another, acknowledging a job well done. Kairi choked, turned an unflattering shade of pink, and practically flattened Riku and Sora into the door in her haste to leave.

Since Porthaven had a surplus of short, blue-eyed, brown-haired boys milling about the harbors, it was decided that in the crush one more wasn't going to raise suspicions as long as they didn't linger too long in one place. Kairi did think it prudent to buy Sora a hat, however, since the porcupine that had taken up permanent residence on his head was a little too distinctive. They picked their way through the more odiferous end of the farmer's market nearest the hotel to the much busier, cleaner, sweeter-smelling central stretches to grab a simple meal of fruit and buttered bread. Kairi was just about to pay for a small basket of fresh strawberries when she spotted a familiar silver braid a few tables down. She replaced the strawberries, to the fruit-seller's disappointment, and elbowed her way down as politely as she could, Riku strolling along behind. "Sophie?" she said questioningly to the head of thin white hair. For a moment Kairi was afraid she had mistaken her for someone else, since this woman seemed to be standing taller, as if the weight hunching her back had been lifted.

Sophie spun about, brandishing the cod she had been about to purchase, but smiled when she saw who was greeting her. Hastily she replaced the fish on the pile. "Hello, Kairi, Riku. You look well. How did your…_", _and she paused to clear her throat and assume an expression of careful nonchalance,_ "mission_ go?"

"Not exactly according to plan, but we found him." She turned back to introduce Sora, but found he had wandered off across the way. "Hey! Would you come over here please?" she called at his back, and waved. Sophie looked pleasantly surprised that it was the skinny boy in a newsboy cap and not the bald, burly, steely-eyed dockworker he'd been standing next to that begin threading his way through the crowd.

"Are Howl and Calcifer treating you all right?" Riku asked.

"Oh, yes, yes. I'm Howl cleaning lady now, you see. He's really not so bad. It's a real mystery why everybody is so frightened of him."

"So_phie_," whined the little man standing next to her. Kairi and Riku hadn't noticed him at first, since the top of his head wouldn't even have brushed Riku's elbow. He was wearing a large blue cloak (large on him, in any case) and a very impressive gray beard. The voice, though, came out like the wheedling of a little boy whose grandmother, but virtue of being old and talkative, was embarrassing him to death. Kairi blinked at him. He started guiltily and continued in a tone pitched much lower that nevertheless still sounded like an irritated nine-year-old. "You can't go around telling people that. Who'd you think started all those nasty stories in the first place?"

"These aren't just 'people', Markl. They saved my life out in the Waste, and it occurs to me that I never got to thank them properly. Riku, Kairi…and Sora," she said, nodding at each of them in turn, "I'm Sophie, professional cleaning witch, and this is Markl, Wizard…Wizard…"

"In Porthaven it's Jenkins," Markl supplied.

"Wizard Jenkins' apprentice," she finished. "I can't offer much, but if you haven't eaten, would crepes do for now?"

"What's crepes?" Sora asked, intrigued, since they sounded eminently edible, and he was intrigued by almost anything in that vein.

Sophie laughed. "You really aren't from around here, are you. I think we'll have to show you, now, provided you don't mind _too_ much, Markl."

The midget scratched at his beard, clearly torn. "I can't eat in this thing. Oh…hold on a minute," he said, and disappeared behind a counter. There was some rustling, and a little pop, and from under that same counter ran a boy with curly auburn hair and a wad of blue fabric under his arm. "If Howl asks where all the money went, I'm telling him this was your idea, Sophie," Markl warned her.

Sophie laughed off the warning, and let Markl lead her by the hand through the crowd. Riku pulled Sora's hat a little lower over his eyes, just in case, and followed after them. I wouldn't hurt to get a little more information on this 'Howl', and they were all hungry. They went up and away from the sea, and as the level of the street rose, so did the quality of the architecture around them. The people too changed, the ladies in larger, more feathered hats and the men in vests and coats and more polished shoes. They saw few policemen, but Riku and Kairi made sure to sidle around to stand in their lines of sight.

Markl was confident in his directions, and before too long he made an abrupt right turn into a restaurant with large open windows and vanilla and chocolate stripes on the awning. The place was busy and they had to crush around one table just a bit too small for five people, even if one of them was nine, but Sora, Riku, and Kairi, thigh to thigh to thigh against the wall, didn't voice any objections. The waitress swung by with one pot of coffee and one of tea, and soon after the trio from the islands were initiated into the mystery of the crepe.

They turned out to be lacy pancakes thin enough to be wrapped around all sorts of delicious things, like sliced strawberries, sweetened fresh cheese, whipped cream, and blueberry jam, several of which both Sora and Markl, in their enthusiasm, got down their respective shirtfronts. It was difficult to maintain a stern front in the face of Sora, and when he began a demonstration of his remarkable ability to balance a place setting's worth of silverware on his face, Markl became a raucously giggling lost cause. Sora was the youngest in his family, and took this rare opportunity to borrow a little brother for a morning with great gusto. Sophie felt she ought to be the voice of order, or at least halfway decent manners, and scolded them halfheartedly throughout the meal, to little effect.

When it had began to wind down, all three declared the experiment in foreign cuisine a smashing success. With all the traveling they did, they had to be adventurous eaters or starve, but the dining out here was a far more satisfying experience than, say, the breakfast buffet Timon and Pumbaa had set up one extremely unpleasant and squishy morning in the Pridelands. There had been no going back for seconds that time, but today Sora was forced to challenge Riku to a coin toss for the last one on the plate.

Abruptly Kairi slapped her hand down on the coin as it landed, eliciting angry protests from both of the boys. "Look. Outside," she ordered loudly. They did, and there was a simultaneous clink of cups against saucers and the scratching of chairlegs on the floor as the other patrons did the same. Beyond the windows people were running, and like a river were flowing downhill, towards the sea.

"No raid bells," Markl observed. "Let's go check it out!" He slapped some bills down on the table and began snaking his way to the door, abandoning the last crepe to overpowering curiosity. He moved fast, for a boy with such short legs, and Sora tried to grab him by the sleeve before he disappeared into the crush and lost the slower Sophie. But the inexorable flow of the crowd swept him away, and he caught only a few flashes of his red curls as Markl wriggled like a fish through the mass of people. Riku grabbed Sora's wrist in turn and followed until the boy was lost from sight.

Carried along with the rest of the spectators, they found themselves almost back at the docks. It was the smoke they saw first. A wall of it had descended on the mouth of the harbor, greasy, black, and smelling of something more chemical and acrid than burning wood. At the head of the trail was a battleship struggling into its home port like a drowning dog, covered in black pockmarks and lying much, much too low in the water. "Come on, let's see what we can do," Sora yelled over the din.

Men in white uniforms and sailor's caps where streaming through the crowd too. "Hey! HEY!" Riku barked, pulled Sora up short by his wrist. "Away from the soldiers, not towards them!" he hissed in Sora's ear.

"Those men need help_, _" Sora said, as if that explained everything.

"Not from us. It wasn't Heartless that did that, Sora. Pretty soon this place is going to be swarming with people that might be a little too interested in you. We need to get out of here _now_." Sora didn't muster any counterarguments, but neither did he unlock the muscles of the arm Riku had wrapped his hand around. Sora looked up at Riku, a challenge in his eyes, and then back to the harbor. Tugs, fishing boats, and pleasure schooners were converging on the mortally wounded ironclad as quickly as their captains could manage, to scoop up the tiny white dots were spilling from its deck into the water.

Sora relaxed his arm in defeat and let Riku lead him away, although to Riku it was a flat victory. He thought he spotted Kairi's wine-red hair farther uphill and made for her. But before he reached shouting distance, there was a roar and three crashes that reverberated through the harbor as if the water had become the skin on a giant's drum. Three plumes of seawater shot high into the air for all to see, and the pitch of the shouting crowd lurched sharply from disbelief to terror; the river of bodies rapidly reversed its flow. Panic spread from mouth to mouth. The jostling turned hard and ugly. Someone shoved Sora hard in the side, and he stumbled into Riku, and when he looked up again Kairi had disappeared.

"Where's the kid?" Riku yelled.

"I don't see him. He knows the way back, but…wait! To your left! Red door! Just grab him!" Sora shoved back against the townspeople until he uncovered Markl flattened against a stack of crates. His face was smudged and his lip was cut, but although he did not seem nearly as enthusiastic about the spectacle as he had been ten minutes ago, at least he wasn't crying. Riku was an only child, and didn't have a clue what the proper response was to a kid in this case. He began to object loudly when Riku scooped him awkwardly up under his arms and accidentally smacked his lip against Riku's temple. A little girl further out in the crowd screamed in pain. He then thought better of asking to be put down.

Riku fixed his most impressive 'don't fuck with me' look on his face and started shoving, Sora following in his wake. People got out of the way. Riku had no idea where he was going, but Markl did, and he shouted directions into Riku's ear whenever they neared an intersections.

A second roar of turbines thundered high above their heads as the airship that had dropped the first warning wave of bombs into the harbor came by for another pass. The doors on its belly hold opened again, and the sound of panic intensified. Markl screamed and buried his head in Riku's hair.

But it wasn't bombs. It looked like a flock of doves fluttering down on them, hundreds upon hundreds of them. Sora grabbed one as it settled into a puddle and its wings became sodden with mud. It was no peace offering; they were only propaganda fliers. He tossed it aside after barely a glance. With a shaky sigh of relief, Markl urged them to a familiar green door, where they found Kairi and Sophie were waiting for them. Riku judged it safe to set Markl down on his feet without the chance he might be trampled.

All were well and accounted for, minus Markl's split lip and Sophie's wheezing. The boy fumbled with his keys for a moment, and let them all inside.

-ooo-

"Markl?" said the man standing by the fire, in tones mild irritation. He was carefully slouched over, so his blond hair fell in rakish locks over his eyes, with his arms crossed beneath the front of an open red-on-gold spring coat. His left eyebrow raised itself a fraction with each head that appeared through the door. "I was hoping that in my absence you did't take it upon yourself hang up a sign for Wizard Howl's Bed and Breakfast over the shop door?"

Markl immediately went on the defensive. "Don't blame me, Master Howl! Sophie invited them to breakfast, and then there was a ship that nearly got sunk and the Strangian's that did it came _back_ to bomb the harbor and we all came running here, and—"

"Enough, Markl, I heard the explosions," he said, as if such a thing was commonplace. He straightened a little, to size up his new guests. He and Riku were nearly the same height, although there was substantially less of Howl, especially around the shoulders. If Riku was being kind, he would have described his build as 'slender', but he usually wasn't, so it would have been more accurate for him to say he could have snapped the man like a toothpick. Even so, he looked like someone who felt he could take care of himself, and anyone that tried going after him would probably be in for a painful surprise. "I suppose that puts the burden on Sophie for introductions, since I don't usually allow strangers into my house?" he said, when she wheezed her way painfully to the top of the stairs, although he directed the statement squarely at Riku with his cool gray eyes. It a languid sort of challenge cloaked in a gentleman's pleasantries.

When Markl hustled Sophie off to a chair and a glass of water, however, and Kairi stepped lightly up the stairs, his face smoothed immediately. Kairi turned to face him, her hand paused on the banister. Howl's eyes wandered over the trim figure she cut in her dress with an appraiser's eye. He did not stare—nothing so coarse—and his eyes lingered longest above her neck and not below, but the exchange grated on Riku's nerves worse than if he had simply spent the moment ogling her chest.

"I think Sophie needs a moment to catch her breath. Why don't you ask Calcifer? We've met," Kairi said, with mischief perking up the corners of her mouth. The fire demon very quietly and deliberately tried to sink into the hearthstones, and failed.

That surprised Howl, although the reaction was quickly smothered. "You were among the mysterious housebreakers last week, I take it. If you escaped this castle once, why come back? Aren't you afraid I'll steal your heart?" he asked, straightening fully and taking a few steps toward her.

Markl rolled his eyes so hard they were in serious danger of bouncing away under the kitchen cupboards. Kairi saw it, suppressed a snicker, and flashed Howl her most brilliant smile (with lots of teeth) and laughed, though probably not for the reason Howl assumed. "I've faced worse," she said. Riku and Sora exchanged looks.

"Guh. Fine," Calcifer forced out, looking about as impressed as Markl with Howl's double entendre. "She's Kairi. He's Riku. I've never met the short one before," he said, and snuck back under his nest of embers.

"That would be Sora," Sophie chimed in, who seemed to have recovered nicely with the assistance of a glass of water and a wet handtowel. "They did you a rather big favor I suppose Calcifer forget to mention."

"Oh?" Howl asked, faintly intrigued.

"The big nasty thing on the roof. We killed it. And all of its friends," Kairi supplied.

Howl looked faintly disturbed for a moment, then laughed and looked back at Calcifer, who was still squashed flat into the hearthstones with shame. His flames had taken on a pinkish-purple tinge near the base—the demonic version of a furious blush. "Were you perhaps not _entirely_ truthful with me about where that thing had gone off to, Calcifer?" Howl asked, with a nice dusting of sarcasm. The demon grumbled something noncommittal and mostly inaudible that could have been creatively interpreted as an apology to the real exterminators. Howl let it go and turned back to Kairi with a shake of his head. "The Heartless hardly ever trouble me, but they can't seem to leave the house alone, especially the big ones. You have my thanks." Riku cleared his throat. "Both of you. However," he paused, to smile at Kairi again "I have business to attend to this morning. If you'd like to join me later for—"

"Hey!" Sora exclaimed suddenly, as his train of thought clicked and whirred and chugged into the station with a triumphant mental 'ding'. "Waitaminute. You call them Heartless too? Nobody else here has used that word."

"Too?" Howl repeatedly, puzzled. "A wizard named Ansem coined the term, if I recall correctly. But most people refer to them by their station: the Dark Servants."

Sora, Kairi, and Riku exchanged knowing glances. "Where did you hear that name?" Sora asked.

"When he introduced himself. We met, briefly, when I was still a student at the Royal Academy of Sorcery."

Three jaws went slack in perfect unison. Sora snapped his shut, and said: "Would it surprise you at _all_ if we said we're from a planet call Radiant Garden?"

Howl blinked. "I think my appointments can wait," he declared.

-ooo-

It took a couple of hours and two pots of tea before the fall of Radiant Garden was pieced together to Howl's satisfaction. Markl hung at the end of the table, injecting awed questions about their clashes with the Heartless, which got Sora going on tangential stories that took quite a while to wind down. Howl grilled them on the contents of Ansem's reports, his philosophical theories, his magical techniques, his Apprentices, his retreat into hiding, his last days, and just about everything they knew about him up to his favorite flavor of ice cream (for completeness, Sora volunteered this information anyway). Sophie had produced a skein of yarn and a pair of knitting needles out of nowhere and flopped down on the chair in front of the fire, but she hung on their words almost as keenly as Markl, and the scarf she started hardly grew at all as they talked.

Howl seemed to sag back into his chair with every new scrap of information, as if they pressed down on him with a physical weight. By the time all his questions had been answered, he had slouched so far down in his seat the next snippet of bad news seemed likely to shove him all the way to the floor. "I never trusted the Heartless," he said, resting his head on the fingers of one hand. "But I underestimated how deeply that distrust should have gone. Most other sorcerers use them as servants and errand boys…you may have seen one or two on the street, and there are _masses_ of them supporting the army. I kept one or two of my own when I was still in the King's good graces, even. It will take a lot of convincing for the Parliament to have them banned outright—especially with the war going the way it has."

"The _Ingary Daily_ says you guys are winning," Riku remarked.

"The reporters are lying through their teeth," Howl commented. "Or rather their pens. I've seen it with my own eyes. The Strangians have firebombed most of the southern coastal towns and are working their way north. I doubt their troopships are far behind."

The unsteady click-click-click of Sophie's knitting needles emanating from behind him stopped abruptly. "Do you think they'll get all the way up the river to Market Chipping?" she asked, her voice pinched with desperation. "My sister's still there."

"They won't, 'cause we'll stop them," Sora declared. "We _have_ to stop them. The Heartless will suck up all that hurt and anger and spit it right back at you—everybody will be toast on both sides. They don't care what you're fighting about as long as you're fighting." He paused, and cocked his head as he realized they were still missing that piece of information. "Which is what, again?"

"A little over a year ago Crown Prince Stephen disappeared on his holiday to one of the mountain towns on the Strangian side of the Waste. He was the King of Strangia's only heir. According to his seers, the Prince is alive and within our borders. He vowed to show Ingary no mercy until his son was returned," Howl explained.

"Okaaaaaaaay…so why didn't your King give him back?" Sora asked.

"There is no back," Howl said darkly. "No one abducted him, at least not with the government's support. Hundreds of wizards, fortune hunters, and fools went out looking for their Prince, and none of them came back with him. Some never came back at all. Theories abound, but my personal opinion is that he nipped across the border to do some illegal big-game hunting and was eaten by a bear."

"Why would the King of Strangia do all that, though? There wouldn't be any reason for your country to kidnap Stephen, so why doesn't he see you're all innocent?" Sora asked, perplexed. It seemed very clear to him. There was an accident, a terrible accident, but not one innocent people should have to atone for.

"The why doesn't matter, at this point. But if we could give the King of Strangia indisputable proof his son's disappearance wasn't anybody's fault, we could stop this stupid war and make both sides look to their _real_ enemies," she ventured.

"So…how're we actually going to _do _that?" Riku asked dryly, addressing the room. "I'll note down poking through a million piles of bear crap as 'Plan B'. Anybody have a Plan A?"

Kairi looked hurt for a moment, and looked at Riku as if she wished he didn't always have to be so blunt about being right. She thought for a moment and tried a different angle. "Who did Ansem talk to when he visited before?" Kairi asked. "Would they listen to the Princess of Radiant Garden if she showed up to argue that case against the Heartless?"

"Finding Stephen is probably impossible; I've tried, so your approach may be my world's best chance," Howl said, briefly clenching his jaw before allowing the unpleasant conclusion free, "if not my country's. Ansem was greatly respected…the advice of anyone from his homeworld would carry a certain weight with Madame Suliman, his Majesty's chief sorceress and…ah…'pioneer' of our world's experiments with the Heartless. The Academy has been starved for news since his Apprentices stopped paying us visits. How quickly could she make it here?"

"She is here," Kairi said. "She's me."

"You're of royal blood?" Howl said, pleasantly taken aback. He pushed himself up from the unhappy puddle he'd melted into on the chair and leaned forward to sweep his eyes over her again. "I wouldn't have taken you for a Princess when we first met. You lacked the—"

"Poofy dress and ten pounds of gold jewelry?" Riku interrupted sourly.

Howl ignored the verbal intrusion and took his chin delicately in his hand to gaze into her eyes. "The self-absorption and frivolity of so many court ladies. Not many would sacrifice their jewels and rouge for the good of the common people." He chuckled to himself. "And unlike them, your beauty doesn't require that assistance."

Against her will, Kairi found herself blushing, and hoped nobody else would notice in the ruddy firelight. Sora and Riku never told her she was beautiful. Not because they didn't think so, but because they were so used to her face it would be like commenting suddenly the sky was blue—nobody need voice it because it was understood, and even then, it wasn't her face but her heart that kept them bound together. Still, Warrior of the Light or not, she was still a woman, and it was a nice thing to hear now and then. The ends of Kairi's lips curled up a little…until she noticed Riku was glaring at her through lowered lashes, his mouth twisted into a faint sneer.

"How soon can you secure her an audience and get this over with?" he asked Howl impatiently.

"Within two days. Madame Suliman sent me a summons to appear at the palace—both me's, Wizard Jenkins and Wizard Pendragon—so I'm sure I could slip her in."

"Great. Wonderful. Thanks," Riku said, with unmistakable sarcasm and none of the mentioned gratitude. "Since that's all sorted out, I wouldn't want to keep you from

what I'm sure is a day chock-full of pressing wizard business. Kairi, Sora, let's go," he said, and it was unmistakably an order, not a request.

"You'll need proper attire to pay a visit to the palace, and there's a good deal more information about Madame Suliman you ought to know before you speak with her," Howl said, addressing Kairi. "Come by tomorrow morning and I'll see to both."

Kairi sensed another sarcastic remark readying for launch, and, nearing the end of her expansive patience with Riku's rudeness, aborted it by kicking him in the ankle and saying very graciously to Howl, "I will, thank you." She rose and collected her hat and bag while Markl scampered up to let them out the right facet of the magical door.

Looking slightly embarrassed on Riku's behalf, Sora got up and followed them. "Same here. Nice to meet you and thanks for breakfast, Sophie."

She smiled. "You're very welcome. Stop by again!"

Kairi heaved a long-suffering sigh once the door shut and their hosts were no longer in earshot. "Riku, was that all really necessary? You were rude the whole time, and not your everpresent low-level aura of rude…_intentionally_ rude."

"That guy rubs me the wrong way," Riku said, thoroughly unapologetic.

"But he was really helpful—he's even going to get Kairi an audience with somebody important enough to call off the Heartless. _I_ liked him," Sora said.

"You like everybody that hasn't tried to beat you to a bloody pulp, and even some of the ones that did. Your opinion on Howl is therefore invalid," he said to Sora. "Now, if we could leave aside for a moment that I think he's a weasel…there wasn't anything about him that seemed off? Not at_ all_?"

Kairi set down her bag and leaned against the side of the building, working at a loose piece of the sidewalk's brickwork with her shoe. Riku was good at grating on the nerves, and it was abundantly clear to her why he'd decided to start once she and Howl had met. But she also valued his judgment, so Kairi tried to box up her irritation with him and set it aside. She pictured Howl in her mind, his mannerisms, his speech, the way he carried himself. "Maybe, now that you mention it…like he wasn't all there. Listening to him talk is almost like watching an actor on stage." Kairi said, thinking aloud.

"Right," Riku said triumphantly. "Wasn't all there. Like he was missing a piece. A _big important heart-shaped_ _piece_. Did you catch what he said? Something along the lines of 'They don't bother me much anymore'? He used to work with the Heartless, then something happened, and they're not interested in him anymore. Can you think of a bigger, redder flag?"

"Oh. Oh no," Sora breathed suddenly. "When those thugs dragged me to the station, they had wanted posters up on the wall. There were a bunch of Howl, and I could've sworn he had black hair in the pictures. Maybe he could've dyed it…maybe not."

"All right," Kairi conceded. "That's all true…and all circumstantial evidence. Maybe he _does_ bleach his hair and have his own secrets to hide and his own reasons for being odd. The only surefire way we ourselves have to tell a human from a Nobody is to stab them and see if there's body left behind to bury. And we're _not_ experimenting with this unless we actually find him in the process of harvesting hearts or doing something equally horrible. Even if he does turn out to be a Nobody, he's trying to help, and he hasn't _done_ anything yet!"

"That we know of," Riku added.

Sora scrubbed his face and addressed Kairi. "I know I've never been the brightest crayon in the box, but if I've learned anything it's that Nobodies are bad news, even if they seem okay at first. Thirteen out of fourteen of the ones we met so far've tried to beat the snot out of me or Riku, and the exception was a _serious _exception." Kairi didn't look like she was buying it. "What?" he said.

"Axel," she said simply.

"Look, Kairi…" Riku began, "as much as I appreciate how he spent the last five minutes of his non-life, I got the impression he spent almost every minute up to that point being a twofaced backstabbing dickwad."

"Fine," Kairi said, not ready to surrender yet. "And how much of that was Xehanort's influence and how much was actually their own free will? I'm just saying I have serious reservations about knocking off somebody…a Nobody…whatever…I just don't think I could pick a fight with an individual that keeps a teddybear collection on his wall unless he gave me a _really_ good reason."

"We'll have to watch him, wait and see," Sora decided. "I don't trust Nobodies, but I do like Howl, we don't have enough evidence to convict him yet."

"That's good enough for me," Kairi said. "Come on, we should get going. The less time you spend out in the open, the better."


	8. Chapter 8

Most of war was waiting, and the battle between Light and Darkness was no exception. There was very little to do in Porthaven to protect its people that wasn't likely to get Sora arrested, so they wandered back to the room to debate, pointlessly, Howl's status as a human being and went to bed before they were really tired.

After an early breakfast of stale rolls in the hotel lobby, Kairi slipped away through the back entrance into the alley. It chafed at her sense of integrity to be sneaking around behind Riku's back, but he would've made a scene, she just knew it, and she didn't want either of them to slip up and accidentally mention Howl's name in the heat of an argument. There were some unpleasant characters around where they were staying, as well as a substantial cash reward for Howl in police custody. It had the potential to be a disastrous combination.

Nothing had set Riku off like this since Donald Duck crashlanded on Sora's head. Riku had (mostly) learned his lesson from the consequences of those events, and she was sure he wasn't going to go on another bitter Princess-kidnapping rampage in ribbed black vinyl, but he seemed intent on being as vocal about his dislike of their new ally as possible. This annoyed Kairi mostly because it jeopardized their mission, and also because she simply liked the man. She'd never been courted by a seasoned professional before and was rather enjoying it, even if she had no intention of letting Howl get any farther than longing gazes.

Kairi took the leisurely hour walk from the hotel to the door of Wizard Jenkin's shop and knocked twice. Sophie answered, done up in a head kerchief with a mop in hand, and looking apologetic. "You're early! He's still upstairs fussing with his hair. I think my cleaning the bathroom got everything juggled around, since he was practically in tears yesterday when he came down the stairs a redhead."

Kairi giggled. Most days she got up, washed, brushed her teeth and hair, and put on clothes. That was the end of it, since work when she wasn't out on missions was often dusty, grubby business, and when she was her concerns centered more on keeping herself and her friends alive than on whether her lipstick matched her eye color. She felt like somebody's anxious boyfriend the night of a big date, complete with embarrassing personal stories from his mother. "I'll be sure to tell him his hair looks nice," she assured Sophie, as the older woman let her inside. "I mean…unless…it's not pea-soup green, is it?"

"I don't _think_ so," Sophie said, absently scratching her cheek.

Kairi sat herself down behind the kitchen table to wait while Sophie puttered about the kitchen with her mop and bucket. Kairi obediently lifting her feet and skirts off the floor as necessary. Before too long Howl descended the staircase in a blue and silver coat and a cloud of cologne. It made Kairi's nose itch a little, but she managed to accept the greetings and compliments without sneezing, making sure to return one about his hair, which was now deep raven black but didn't look at all bad on him. Sophie waved goodbye as they left. It may have been Kairi's imagination, but her smile looked slightly forced, and she clutched the mop like she wanted to strangle it.

When Howl stepped out of the door the buildings outside had gained another three floors at least and no longer smelled remotely like fish. Unlike Porthaven, which was a thin-lipped, solid, and often ugly place, this city was, in a word, lovely. The facades were a riot of bright colors, concrete ivy, and wrought iron gates and gratings. The streets were well swept and in excellent repair considering the thousands of feet, hooves, and wheels the pounded over the cobblestones every day. "Welcome to Kingsbury, Kairi," he said, and took her hand on his arm so he could nonchalantly bend low and whisper in her ear. "While we're here, call me Evan Pendragon. Wizard Howl would not exactly be welcome in the capital unless he came in chains." He straightened and resumed the normal conversational volume. "The dressmakers' is quiet a distance; I'll get a car for us." Instead of stepping out into the street and hailing a taxi like a normal person, he peered intently into a spot that didn't look like much of anything, and then, satisfied with whatever he found, flicked his wrist as if he were giving a sharp tug on an invisible string.

"Do you mind if I ask why he's so unwelcome?" Kairi asked, they strolled leisurely down the sidewalk to the street corner. He hadn't relinquished her arm yet, and while this was too close for her taste, she couldn't think of a way to reclaim it without embarrassing him in public. She tried to keep the conversation as businesslike as possible to counter it.

Howl laughed indulgently. "I didn't kill anyone, if you're worried. I simply made several very powerful people very angry with me. It was incredibly unfair, you see. Academics are almost as bloodthirsty as politicians, and when you're a simple undergraduate there's not many places you can turn when what you know embarrasses important people. The stakes were too high for…ah…I believe that's our car," he said abruptly, and left that tantalizing morsel dangling just out of reach. Within seconds an unoccupied cab came whizzing down the street at an incredible speed, dodging the rest of the cars and carriages, a trio of giggling ladies, two poodles, and a small boy in a sailor suit with superhuman skill. It screeched to a halt directly in front of them. She reached for the handle, but Howl opened the door for her before she could grasp it and waved her inside.

The cabbie made a valiant effort to unglue his shaking hands from the steering wheel to ask Howl where they were bound. Fortunately, Howl let him get there under his own power and made to resume the conversation. Unfortunately, what he chose to discuss was just a hair above whining, and although Kairi nodded and made encouraging noises, he refrained from adding any useful details whatsoever. He had a very pleasant voice to listen to, unexpectedly deep and resonant, but from the sound of it _he_ enjoyed hearing himself talk as much as everyone else might, which somewhat spoiled the effect. He carefully rebuffed all of her attempts to wring a promise of the full story out of him as they rode. When they stopped in front of the dressmakers Howl gave their still rather pale cabbie enough cash to cover their fare plus a sizable tip. He made no comment on the magic Howl had used to drag him up to the curb, but wished them a good day and puttered off.

Howl smiled on indulgently while Kairi was whisked away by a trio of plump and well scrubbed female employees almost as soon as the shop's door had jingled. It was an upscale place, with flattering lights, lush wine carpets, and tasteful fixtures. The gowns on display in the windows were fancier than anything Kairi had worn in her life. The women ushered her into a spacious fitting room and diplomatically urged her to strip down to her underwear. She couldn't think of a diplomatic way to say no.

The youngest of the girls went bug-eyed when Kairi did finish removing her old, plain dress, sputtering something rather unprofessional, and went to work tallying up the lengths and girths of all Kairi's relevant body parts without another word. She got glares from the other two, at least. Kairi pinched her eyebrows a little and consoled herself with the knowledge she probably wouldn't ever be coming back here. To quiet gossip and suspicion she mumbled something about being from the country and raising mastiffs and hoped that was enough to satisfy their curiosity about where all those faint tooth and claw marks had come from.

She didn't have a lady's figure, either. Her arms were too sinewy, her hair too short, and her hands too rough. She was _not _conventional princess material, and being poked and prodded with this faint aura of disapproval only accentuated it. She felt a sudden stab of apprehension over the audience tomorrow. Bravery in battle was one thing. Bravery that required her to debate a very powerful, very canny, and probably dangerous sorceress was something else again. Well…if Madame Suliman was as smart as Howl seemed to think, she would listen, and make the right choice.

The girls finished taking her measurements and disappeared into the stockroom. The most senior came back with a large box, trailed by the other two. Kairi did not put the contents on, but rather had them put on her, and when they were finished led her out to where Howl was waiting.

"For such short notice, that looks magnificent," he breathed, half to the girls and half to Kairi. She smoothed down the slick silk bodice with her hands and had to agree. It was a delicate yellow a shade too rich to be white, and beautifully adorned with lace and crystal beads without being gaudy. The purity of the color was fitting for a Princess of Heart, even if it was only by coincidence.

"I'll have that boxed up and sent back to the house," Howl said to her. He caught the attention of the attendant and asked, "Charge it to the Pendragon account, would you? The lady and I have sights to see," before Kairi could even work out how she was going to pay for the thing.

"Thank you," she said, surprised but sincere. "It's a beautiful city. I'd love to see more of it."

Kairi changed back into her old clothes and was whisked away to a waiting carriage, horsedrawn, this time, so she could drink in the sights at slower pace, and was taken on the whirlwind tour of Kingsbury. Despite her grim mission she found herself enjoying it. The tour ended early in the afternoon at the door of an exclusive-looking teashop. It was a place to be seen, and every table was occupied by exactly one man and one woman. Howl exchanged a few quiet words and probably a large bill with the maitre'd, and they were led back to a secluded table half hidden by a pair of midnight-blue curtains. The room was private for a painfully obvious reason. Kairi mulled over how to let him down as gently as possible, and while she was occupied with her thoughts Howl ordered for her before she could speak. It annoyed her slightly, and he laid his hand suggestively over hers while doing so, which annoyed her even more. Once the waiter left, so as not to embarrass him, she firmly removed it and set it down outside her personal bubble. "This has been really nice, Howl, but I am here for a reason."

He looked faintly affronted for a moment but rallied again, probably assuming she was playing hard-to-get. "Of course. Fate of the world and everything. What did you want to know?"

She sighed internally with relief. He really was a gentleman, and although she was sure he wanted to charm his way into her panties, at least he wasn't going to be as ass about it. Flirting was touchy, especially on another world when she didn't know the rules. When it came down to it, her familiarity with the rules on her _own_ world was a little fuzzy. Kairi was nice to people out of reflex, but felt this may not be working in her favor at the moment. Howl had been very forthcoming with his assistance to their cause, and she didn't want to insult him, but enough was enough. "Why is there a price on your head?" she asked.

Howl leaned back against the plush chair, and blew out a slow breath. "Are you sure there isn't another topic of conversation I could tempt you with? We have all day to…" he trailed off when the expectant look on her face failed to fade. "It's not a period in my life I enjoy discussing."

"We need to know we can trust you," she said. "At least…I think I already do. My friends need a little more convincing."

"Officially, I'm a deserter from His Majesty's army, and an oathbreaker, for failing throw my life into the pyre of this pointless war."

"And unofficially?" Kairi prompted, still gazing onto his face. Howl broke eye contact and looked down into his empty teacup. She didn't enjoy making him squirm like this, but she sensed there was something very important buried under the superficial flirtation he'd heaped on her so far. She had only known Howl for two days, but she knew the _type_ inside out. Cocksure, witty, handsome…and deep inside, terrified. He was just like Riku in many ways, and for that it was no wonder they'd clashed from the moment they'd met. "Did it have something to do with the Heartless?" Kairi asked, hazarding a guess. Howl stiffened a little. Apparently she'd guess right.

"I had entered the Royal Sorcery Academy just in time for things to get…" Howl paused and licked his lips. "…interesting. I was a lab assistant at the facility. In my second year of the internship something went wrong. I was the only survivor. It was contained, barely, but…"

"But the palace is trying to silence you," Kairi said, as she realized it.

"They almost succeeded. No one in the kingdom can talk about what happened with any detail to someone who doesn't already know. An elegant curse executed by a master sorceress," he said bitterly. "I'm the only one with a chance of breaking it. That's what she's afraid of."

"Master sorcer_ess_? Madame Suliman?"

"Beautiful, royal, and quick on the uptake," Howl said, smiling weakly. "She's afraid she'll be proven wrong about the Heartless. Tread carefully tomorrow, but if you can convince her, you have convinced the king. She wouldn't listen to me."

"Come with me and try again, then," Kairi urged.

"I'll…I'll follow after you in disguise. It's best that way," he said, letting the confident mask slide before he righted it again.

"Howl?"

"Hmmm?"

"One more thing. If your lab was overrun with Heartless, how did you survive? You said yourself you were only a student, and in the thick of it."

"They didn't seem to have much of a taste for me," he said, sounding slightly confused about his good fortune himself. "Now, I believe that's our waiter. How much do you know Ingarian palace protocol?"

-ooo-

Sora and Riku were sitting at the hotel bar playing checkers with a very tattered board and handfuls of old bottle caps. There was an impressive collection of glasses by their elbows; those next to Sora had contained a procession of cherry sodas, but the smaller ones at Riku's elbow had something a great deal stronger that had thrown Sora into a coughing fit the first and only time he asked for a taste. Riku was rather proud he hadn't made a fool of himself knocking those back, a skill imparted to him by Cid in between the sessions dismantling gummi ship thrusters. He'd sort of hoped they would distract him from thinking about Kairi and where she had chosen to spend her day. They didn't, and only served make his brain so fogged he was in the process of doing the unthinkable—losing to Sora at checkers. The younger boy slid yet another piece to the end of the board. "King me," he announced.

"Go king yourself," Riku said moodily, as if the phrase was synonymous with a physically impossible sexual act.

Sora sighed and shifted his weight to the opposite elbow. "You are the world's worst loser," he announced, reaching into the pile of captured Harding's Pale Ale, but stopped abruptly when the door to the bar jingled. Heads turned, jaws dropped, and there was nearly a very sticky accident with a tray of cocktails, their waiter, and somebody's foot. "H-hi, Kairi," Sora stuttered. His eyebrows had packed their bags and taken up residence somewhere in his hair. Riku spun around on his barstool to see what had evicted them.

It was the dress. But it was a dress like the Christmas Feast at Disney Castle was 'dinner'. It flowed around her body like a cascade of thick cream, sparkling around the neckline and sleeves with tiny jewels embedded in the lace.

"You look great, Kairi," Sora said, grinning. "Just like royalty."

"I had to show it off, but I should probably change before I get it all dirty. Wizard…um…Jenkins told me a lot about the court you ought to know. Come on, I'll fill you in," she said, and spun around and headed for the stairs. Sora let them all in with the key in his pocket, and Kairi began the convoluted process of undressing, which ended up taking four pairs of hands and some improvisation.

"Looks good on you. How much was it, anyway?" Riku asked.

"Oh…ah…don't worry about it, Riku. Howl bought it for me," she said, and laughed. "He's quite the gentleman. Wouldn't take 'no' for an ans—"

Riku's face darkened like a gathering thunderhead, and Kairi realized that answer had been a mistake. "I see. Tell me again what took six hours for you and Howl to discuss?"

"We were _strategizing_, okay? Strictly. Business," she insisted, looking hurt.

"I don't trust him," Riku said. "He's a wanted criminal. But I don't suppose you got into _that_, did you?"

"Actually, we did. It was political and he is not the one at fault."

Sora paused with his hands on one of the dozens of tiny button and peeked around Kairi's head to look at him warningly. "Riku, I saw how messed up their cops are firsthand. If he's not all buddy-buddy with them, that's a good thing. Seriously."

Riku looked unconvinced. Kairi waved Sora's hands from the fastenings and stepped over to look straight up at Riku, hands planted on her hips. "I can take care of myself, and spend my time with whoever I like. You're trying to Rescue the Princess again. Please stop, because she doesn't need it."

"He's a smarmy, conceited little bastard and I did_ not _like the way he looks at you," Riku answered.

"And we need his help, so I'm going to put up with it. And _so are you_."

"You let him buy you a dress," Riku said, not even remotely pacified, in a voice just short of a snarl. "That's hardly 'putting up with it.'"

"I needed one for the audience, and in case you haven't noticed we're all kinda broke," she retorted. She paused, breathing deep and trying to be conciliatory "I understand that its—"

Riku was in no mood to be soothed, and the liquor pushed his voice over the brink, into a furious shout that could be heard through the thin walls of their room. "No you don't! How could you? You've never had a jealous thought in your life! If you say you can _understand_ us lesser, tainted beings, you're either a delusional or a liar!"

"Riku!" Sora exclaimed, horrified.

Kairi was too shocked to answer at first. She simply looked up at him, mouth agape and lips working over unspoken retorts. Finally, she swallowed hard against the tears prickling her eyes, and said, quietly: "We have to sacrifice a lot, doing what we do, and I'm sorry, but your ego is on that list. Now _get out_ until you have it under control." Riku didn't move. Finally her voice cracked and split with anger too, and she shouted, "The door is over there!"

There were a dozen things Riku could think of to say to her. All of them were cruel, and most untrue. He bit them back and threw open the door as if it had been his idea in the first place and slammed it behind him. "Can you finish unlacing the corset, Sora?" she asked. "I feel like I can't breathe."

-ooo-

There were several courses of action laid out for Riku to choose from as he walked aimlessly through the narrow streets. The easiest was to find the seediest, most disgusting dive bar he could and get drunk…drunk_er…._so drunk he lost track of what planet he was on and possibly his own name, and then pass out somewhere so he wouldn't have to face Kairi again until the morning. That was the easiest, and also the stupidest. Many of the survivors of Radiant Garden were, unsurprisingly, heavy drinkers, and Riku knew his share of people that tried drowning their problems in alcohol. He also knew most problems were champion swimmers.

The most difficult choice would be to slink back to the hotel room with his tail between his legs and apologize for being a complete and total dick to Kairi, and then to Sora, for having to watch it all. Riku was brave—he was brave enough to take the first leap into the unknown, or shut the door that was the only way out of a writhing abyss that would, for all he knew, claim his life. But he was ashamed to discover he wasn't brave enough to turn around, look Kairi in the eye, and say two simple words.

There was a bridge up ahead over the channel that led to the sea. It was deserted. Riku chose option three, which was to sit down with his legs dangling over the edge and his arms braced on the guardrail and do nothing but watch the boats slide by under his shoes. As he sat, the clouds in the sky enriched from gray to a brief burst of sherbert pinks and oranges on the western horizon. No one stopped on the bridge but the lamp lighter, who nodded in silent greeting as he went about his task and quickly moved on. Riku slapped at a few mosquitoes that had emerged to feast and ignored him. There were no stars out tonight. The sky was now completely swathed in a funeral cloak of black, grays, and weak violet, and the clouds began to weep halfheartedly over the city. Riku didn't move to get up and out of the feeble but still very annoying rain.

When the time the drops had just soaked through the back of his shirt, a set of footsteps clanked across the bridge and stopped right beside him. Their owner said: "Either you're slipping or I'm getting way better as this, because it only took me a couple hours to find you this time." Sora sat down next to him, with his back to the rail and his wrists crossed over his knees.

"Did I make her cry?" Riku asked.

"Yeah, a little," Sora answered. Riku sighed heavily and let his chin fall further down on to his arms. It wasn't the first time he'd managed to do that, but they were kids back then. It was different. Sora arched his head back a little, so he could get a look at Riku's face. "Did she make you cry?"

"What kind of dumbass question is that?" Riku muttered into his shirtsleeves. Sora decided this meant 'almost', and kept his mouth shut. He resisted the urge to open it again and waited for Riku to speak.

"When Howl looks at her she's _naked_," Riku growled. "That doesn't bother you?"

"Not really," Sora said, shrugging. Riku looked at him quizically. "I trust Kairi," he said, to elaborate. "She's never given me a reason not to. And I thought you were convinced Howl was a Nobody."

Riku sighed again. Nobodies operated on force of habit and the phantom twinges of their lost hearts, like someone who has lost a limb can still feel it ache. Their emotions were superficial, weak as wet paper. They couldn't feel much like infatuation, and certainly nothing like love. If Howl was one, it was as logical to begrudge Kairi the time spent with him instead of Riku as it was to begrudge a _chair_ the time she spent sitting in it instead of his lap. But logic rarely entered into things like this. "I'm doing it again, aren't I," Riku said.

"Yeah," Sora agreed.

"I thought that was _done_. I fought that fight. I won," Riku insisted, partially to Sora but mostly to himself. Riku was well-acquainted with jealousy. It began as a catch in his throat, where a question he did not want to ask or answer would stick unspoken; then a steady drip, drip, drip of acid that percolated through his chest and pooled in his belly until it seemed he couldn't concentrate on anything without that pain corroding every thought and feeling.

Sora laughed gently. "I don't think you stop fighting that fight 'til you croak. It's part of being a good person…which you've proven you are. But you _do _trust her, don't you?"

"Of course I do…she's so perfect. How could I not?" he said, and left the conclusion for Sora to draw about his own worthiness for such a princess.

Sora made a little snorting sound in the back of his throat, exactly like the sound one makes when you've been selected as the victim of an infamous Riku stealth dunking at the pool. His shoulders started to shake. And since Sora was piss-poor at keeping anything inside for long, the laughter bubbled over to fill the quiet and the distant splashing of the water. Riku turned to stare at him, and couldn't decide whether kicking him and stalking away to be deeply offended or joining in was the appropriate response. When the brief laughter ebbed, Sora said: "That's really sweet of you, Riku. Totally wrong, but sweet. Kairi's lots of things. Perfect wasn't one of them last time _I_ checked." Riku pinched his eyebrows together skeptically, so Sora cast about for proof. It didn't take long. "Don't you remember the homemade hang-gliders? That was ninety percent her idea."

"Oh. Yeeeeah." Riku remembered. It was very difficult to forget, since it had resulted in him spending a whole month of prime beach season in a cast, and to this day the ring finger on his left hand bent funny when he laid it flat.

"Then there was the time she got her school portraits taken with her dress on backwards and inside out. Then slept in and missed retakes. Oh…and the day she tried making shrimp tempura. Lucky you were such a quick draw with the fire extinguisher."

A nostalgic chuckled escaped from his lips before he remembered he was supposed to be brooding. "Didn't her mom have to get new countertops?"

"She did. See? We all have our flaws. Kairi doesn't think things through before she dives in head-first and can't cook anything but pancakes without setting the kitchen on fire. Yours is that you take everything too darn _personally_."

"I do not."

"And you can't take criticism."

"Yeah, well you couldn't keep yourself from opening your mouth to let out every thing that pops into your head if you life depended on it, and speaking of which you _really _have to hold off kissing me in the morning 'til after you brush, because damn," Riku said, now thoroughly back in the spirit of things.

"Too-che," Sora said, meekly submitting himself as a verbal punching bag. After all this time he didn't mind. Insulting people usually made Riku feel better.

"It's pronounced 'too-_shay_', stupid," Riku corrected.

Sora pushed himself to his feet and turned around to offer Riku a hand up, which he accepted. "You're not the only guy ever to get sorta sloshed and say something to his girlfriend he didn't mean." Sora stuck his hands in his pockets against the chill kissing the air. "And you _didn't_, right?"

"No," Riku assured him, as they wandered back in the direction of the hotel. "At least…mostly no. It still seems like she doesn't _get_ normal people sometimes."

"We're not normal people, but I know what you mean. She doesn't have to struggle against herself to keep from falling; she doesn't have anywhere to fall to. But I don't think that makes her any better or worse than somebody who's had to fight every step of the way to keep his heart from pitching over the cliff."

Riku glanced over at him, but Sora was looking down to keep from stepping into anything unpleasant on the cobblestones, and his look wasn't returned. Riku had always been proud of what he imagined to be his whipcrack intellect, and Sora just never compared. He was too slow. His mind couldn't keep up with the intricacies of Riku's plots and plans as they careened from one challenge to another; he never really cared to try. It had never really occurred to Riku slowing down might have given him the time to see things as they were, and not the way Riku imagined them to be.

-ooo-

Kairi was sprawled on the bed in her nightshirt when Riku opened the door, flipping through a magazine she'd found in the drawer of the nightstand. Her expression was carefully blank; she was waiting for him to make the first move. Sora poked Riku hard in the back and he stumbled over the doorframe. Kairi giggled. Riku glared behind him, briefly, and turned back to her. "I didn't mean it," he said haltingly. Apologies had always felt like wringing the last drops of juice from a withered old lemon. "There was whiskey involved…I'm sorry. I know it's not fair to be angry at you for being you."

She abandoned the magazine on the bed and threw off the covers. She wasn't wearing anything _but _a nightshirt, and Riku assumed his apology had been accepted when she rose, stepped gingerly over to him across the chilly floor, and craned her head to kiss him on the lips. She had to stand on the very tips of her toes to execute that maneuver and wobbled a little, so Riku steadied her by grabbing her at the nearest convenient point, which happened to be right where his palms fit into the depressions on the sides of her hips. After a few sweet seconds she pulled away and sank back down to the ground. "I think you owe him one too."

"A kiss or an apology?" Riku asked.

Sora pulled himself away from wall where he'd been leaning to watch them. "Can I have both?" he asked hopefully. Kairi dropped her hand from where it had been resting below Riku's shoulderblade and extended it to Sora, an invitation to complete the circle.

Riku obligingly gave him the first, and then the second: "Thanks for coming to get me. And making sense when I don't."

"You're welcome," Sora said to him. "It's what I do." He was still for a few moments, then walked his fingers down the gentle valley in the center of Riku's back and worked the tuck of his shirt free so he could run his fingers across his bare skin. Kairi took notice of this and contributed by laughing warm and feather-light into Riku's chest and undoing the buttons from the top down. She kissed him on tiptoe again, quickly, and hooked her finger into one of his belt loops to tug him in the direction of the bed. Kissing him long and deep was always much easier for Kairi and Sora when he was horizontal, and usually _that_ led somewhere even sweeter.


	9. Chapter 9

They slept deeply that night, which was a good thing, since the day began early. Kairi went out to get her hair done up, and once properly curled and coiffed Riku and Sora escorted her to Howl's shop in her finery. Sophie was waiting up for her with walking stick in hand, which they hadn't been expecting. Her serviceable blue cotton dress had become silk overnight, and while it didn't compare to Kairi's, it was much more fitting for the court audience she was apparently now attending. Howl looked rather tired and was only sketchily dressed. Their arrival had interrupted some kind of wheedling argument between him and Sophie, who had lost, and her mouth was set in a sour line beneath the brim of her plain straw hat. "It's you and me, Kairi," she said testily. "I'm going as Howl's mother to try to talk them out of drafting him. He's too chicken to show up as himself."

Calcifer snickered from the fireplace, and Howl bristled. "I explained already it would jeopardize their mission if someone were to recognize me. I'll be close by. There'll be a car to pick you up in less than five minutes. I have to be out of sight by then," he huffed. He fished briefly around in his pocket and withdrew a silver ring set with a small round stone. Taking Kairi's left hand, he slipped it on her ring finger. The symbolism wasn't lost on her, but before she could object, he said: "Insurance. Keep it with you. It'll help if you find yourself in trouble. And good luck," he said, looking like he wanted to give her a goodbye kiss, too, but refrained. He grabbed a fat satchel by the door and swept out of the shop, dragging his dignity behind him.

"Phew," Markl said, from his perch on the kitchen table. "What did you say to him yesterday, Kairi? He was acting like a panicky hedgepig all night."

"I don't know," she lied, a tiny white one, since she sensed Howl would rather keep their conversation private. "Maybe he's nervous? From what I know about her, Madame Suliman sort of scares _me_."

"Hmmph," Sophie grumbled. "At least old witches are good for something—they don't get all flighty when they've got to talk to other old witches." She turned to Kairi. "We'd better not keep the driver waiting. You boys can stay here, if you like. I made some cake last night; it's in the cabinet. Howl wouldn't eat any of it. Help yourself."

"Thanks!" Sora said, and meant it.

"I'm heading out too, Sophie," Markl said. "I've got to sub in for Howl down at the docks. He's got at least three fishermen lined up to renew the charms on their trawlers, and leaving them hanging is baaaad for business."

"How would he manage without us, I ask you," Sophie muttered, and threw open the Kingsbury door.

"Good luck," Sora called out to them, and hoped they wouldn't be needing it.

-ooo-

A sleek black motorcar was idling at the corner when Kairi and Sophie stepped out of the door to the Pendragon shop. The driver, dressed in livery, stepped out to bow low and open the door for them. The ride was Sophie's first real taste of Kingsbury, and she shamelessly gasped and pointed at the elegant buildings and throngs of people like the old small-town woman she was. The driver was strictly formal in his replies to her torrent of questions, although Kairi sensed the pride in his grand city leaking out around the polite servant's mask.

The palace was at the center of the metropolis, with the streets radiating out from that central point, and it was nearly a straight shot from the Pendragon shop. The car stopped before a gated arch that stood at the entrance of a vast expanse of perfectly trimmed grass, rosebushes, and marble statuary. The driver greeted the guards in their stiff blue finery, and at their signal the gate rolled back under its own power. The road curved around the explosion of roses, and their chaffeur stopped at a wide white stair that could only belong to the palace proper. He opened the rear doors and bowed again, offering them both a hand out. Kairi took it, to be polite, and looked up at the steps. More soldiers in blue lined the balustrade, thereby preventing anyone who needed a sturdy handhold from actually using it. It was grand but not in the least friendly, not even the gardens, which hadn't a single flower free of thorns.

Sophie and Kairi were not the only guests. A palanquin bourn by two lanky men in ugly pink suits and opera masks arrived almost precisely when they did. Sophie sucked in a quick breath, her expression curdling with recognition and distaste. Kairi did too, but for a much more sinister reason—she realized with revulsion that the palanquin bearers were only man-shaped, and their hands and faces only rudimentary approximations in black slime. The one in front opened its mouth and licked its lips like a dog on a chain when a particularly juicy morsel had been dropped out of reach. She shuddered despite the warmth of the day and firmly told her straining heart not to summon her blade and strike them down as they strode. Her instruction turned out to be unnecessary, since at the base of the steps they convulsed in unison, dropped the palanquin, and proceeded to melt out of their hideous pink suits into little puddles on the paving stones. Kairi cocked an eyebrow.

"Sorry ma'am, vehicles are prohibited beyond this point. You must continue on foot!" one of the soldiers announced.

The palanquin rocked on its base, the occupant muttering curses in a voice like overripe apple. For a moment Kairi was afraid it would tip and stepped forward to help, cross the soldiers weren't doing so, but the door swung open and a booted foot extended to steady it. It was followed by a rotund leg and sea of black silk, mink, and pallid flesh, more than could possibly have been crammed into the small palanquin. The woman had been made up to perfection earlier in the day but now looked somewhat wilted, like forgotten lettuce. She sneered openly at Sophie, but wiped the nastiness from her features when she saw the jeweled tiara (another of Howl's gifts) ringing Kairi's temples. Kairi decided she disliked her immediately.

"Is that your new maid, my lady? I hope you don't let her help you too much with your wardrobe. She has _no_ taste," the woman drawled. Sophie's mouth twitched and her cane trembled, as if she wanted to crack the obese gentlewoman across the shins with it.

Kairi wondered what passed for taste in anyone crazy enough to wear fur on such a pleasant spring day, even someone on the way to an audience in the palace. Kairi gave her a tight smile and favored her with the look Princess Jasmine gave to anyone who insulted her self-sufficiency. "It's _Princess_, thank you, and she isn't a maid. She's a companion. We have a joint audience with Madame Suliman at noon."

"I have the slot directly after, I suppose," she sniffed. "I imagine she has finally realized how much the war effort needs my talent." Kairi looked at her blankly. "Don't recognize me? Hmm. I am the Witch of the Waste!"

"She…she…" Sophie mumbled, like her lips were clamping themselves shut of their own volition. Finally, at a loss, she settled on: "called my old hat shop _tacky,_" and spun about to begin stumping vigorously up the steps with her cane. Kairi walked quickly to catch up and offer Sophie her arm, who ignored it. Kairi took up two handfuls of her dress and followed her, pausing every so often to glance back at the Witch of the Waste. She was having a terrible time of the stairs, sweating and wheezing with every step. The ringlets in her hair had wriggled loose from the jeweled pins as the wind blew through them. She looked like a lump of wax melting under the sun, and although the nasty old hag deserved none of Kairi's sympathy, she was afraid she would give herself a stroke, and nasty old hag or not she didn't deserve that. Kairi ran lightly back down the steps and offered her hand. "Please, just take it," she said. The witch wrinkled her nose, but exhaustion won over pride.

"To bad I'm not younger, or I'd help you too!" Sophie taunted from higher up. She was first to the top, and grudgingly stopped to catch her breath while the other two caught up.

The ornate doors swung open before them. "Princess Kairi of Radiant Garden, Mistress Pendragon, and the Witch of the Waste!" the steward inside announced. Several pairs of eyes brushed over the trio. A few sniffs and pinched brows were bestowed on Sophie, in her plain blue dress and sensible boots, and rather a lot on the Witch, who now resembled a candle burned so long it had dribbled all over the stick. And it wasn't just her makeup that had run—her skin sagged around her eyes and mouth as if she'd aged twenty years in five minutes.

Kairi was shocked to see a few heads inclined deferentially in her direction as the tiara sparkled in the light of the electric lamps. She returned them with as regal a smile as she could manage and wished she had more practice walking gracefully in heels. A small blond pageboy appeared to politely shoo them through the right hallway out of the three that branched off of the entry hall. The rooms they passed were empty of courtiers and adorned with plainly priceless objects d' art, gilt mirrors, and oil portraits of long-dead aristocrats. The carpet was so thick it unsteadied Kairi's steps. The whole effect was like eating too much cake—delicious at first, but quickly cloying, and it made her wonder where they dredged up all the money for the confection.

"A chair!" the Witch shrieked suddenly. "It's mine, it's mine!" She peeled off and almost flowed into the seat at the center of a small room off to the side. The page shut the door and silently motioned for Kairi and Sophie to continue. When they were nearly to the end of the hall, there was a muffled pop from the direction they had come, the lights flickered, and a brief but vicious snarl seeped out from under the door. Kairi turned back to the source of the noise and found the page had slid in front of her, silent as a ghost on the carpets.

"Pay it no mind, your Highness. We're nearly there." Kairi wanted to go back, but she couldn't be late for this appointment. She didn't argue with him. He strode up to the double doors and swung one open for them.

The dimness of the hallway opened into a magnificent glass greenhouse. The heat and humidity would have been suffocating save for the glorious sunshine that poured in from all directions. It nourished a carefully tended profusion of plants, an aristocrat's ordered vision of what a jungle ought to be. Kairi had seen a few in her time and found it lacking. The birdsong was missing, for one, and so was the shielding shade of branches high overhead, and the feeling of soft loam underfoot, for the room was paved with a layer of well polished stones. The page motioned for them to wait at the beginning of the path between two man-high ferns while the current audience was wrapped up. The four fat men in dark suits quickly filed out another exit, and Kairi sensed it was their turn to step forward.

At the center of the room was a high-backed, padded chair set on two wheels, a writing table, a stool, and a few more of the blond pageboys almost identical to the first. In the wheelchair sat a stately older woman dressed all in crimson, with a heavy necklace of star sapphires laid over her shoulders, the pale stars burning within seeming to dance with the slight movement of her torso as she penned a last few notes on the paper before her. She smiled pleasantly when she had finished. "You must be tired, Mrs. Pendragon. Please, sit." Sophie did, and removed her hat and laid it on her lap. When she spoke she spared only the briefest of glances for Sophie, and the rest of the time her eyes were fixed on Kairi, like she was a cherished niece returning after a long absence abroad. "You don't know how welcome your visit is, Princess Kairi," Madame Suliman said, graciously inclining her head. "We received no news of Radiant Garden for so many years…I feared something terrible had befallen Ansem and his Apprentices."

Kairi forced herself not to fidget. She may have been a princess by birth, but never in her life had she really felt like royalty, in this gilded palace least of all. She had neither Aurora's ethereal grace or Jasmine's casual tones of command and felt adrift on a sea of half-recalled protocol instruction. She was starting to feel uncomfortably sticky in the heavy air of the greenhouse under all the silk and lace, and the high heel and narrowed toes of the boots she wore were almost torturous after eighteen years of wearing nothing but shoes with square toes and thick rubber treads. The royal title clattered discordinantly over her ears. No one addressed her by it, ever, as long as she could remember. Legally speaking it was no longer even accurate, since she had relinquished her figurative crown not long after taking up permanent residence Radiant Garden, and ended the royal line for good with a stroke of her pen on the newly drafted constitution. _She_ hadn't been the one who led the battered survivors through ten years of hell and back out again, and it seemed only right to relinquish her power to the people that had.

Kairi spoke instead as a scion of a much older line, linked not by flesh and blood but shared destiny. "That's why I came to you, Madame Suliman. Something did." She paused. Kairi wasn't much of an orator. She thought for a moment on how best to phrase it, then decided it was best delivered unadorned. "They're all dead, Ansem too, and their kingdom…my kingdom…was destroyed."

Madame Suliman was well-schooled in courtly gesture, and all that betrayed her shock was a barely audible gasp and a tightening of her fist around the plain wooden staff she held in her hand. "You have my deepest sympathies, Princess Kairi," she said, and meant it. "His death was a great blow to scholarship worlds over. May I ask how you came to survive this disaster?"

"His first apprentice took me far away before it struck," she explained, but didn't feel the need to delve into how or why. "Not many others survived. I came to warn you, before the same thing happens here." She indulged in a quick glance beside her. Sophie had gone completely still.

"Before what, happens, Princess?" Madame Suliman asked, regarding her with a blandly pleasant and unreadable stare.

"He shared his research with you? About Heartless?"

"Yes," she said, inclining her head. "His apprentices and mine conferred on several occasions. Their work gave us the inspiration we needed to harness the Servants' power correctly."

"I see," Kairi said. This was it. She had to step forward over the misty precipice and hope there was something to catch her below. "Then you ought know he lost control of the laboratories. His test subjects devoured the hearts of his six Apprentices. They spread out from the castle to the streets of the capital, killing everyone in their path. When they finished, not a single heart was left to my world. Only a few thousand people escaped out of millions. The rest of my family wasn't among them.

"I know it seems like the Heartless are the best weapon you have against your enemies, but they're not. They're slipping through the hands of your witches and wizards right now, slinking through the Darkness and murdering your people. It doesn't matter how much of an advantage you think they'll give you. Eventually, you'll all lose—every man, woman, and child on this world."

Any warmth in the older woman's gaze was extinguished. Her features didn't rearrange themselves, but Kairi could feel the crust of killing ice spreading over their initial rapport. "If we hadn't mastered the Heartless Kingsbury would be ashes by now, and have a Strangian flag flying over the rotunda. _I_ control them, Princess Kairi, and after thirteen years I still possess my heart, as do all of my colleagues at the Royal Academy, and my apprentices, save the last and the most foolish. Perhaps Ansem's error was not in the course of study he chose, but in the overestimation of his own skill."

Kairi's stomach tightened. "I didn't mean to disrepect…" she began, edging into desperation.

Madame Suliman cut her off with a wave of her hand. "My agents have informed me that you came here with two young men, one of whom was captured and admitted to possessing a Keyblade. Yes, Princess, I know what they are, don't gape like that, it's unbecoming of a young lady of refined blood."

Kairi snapped her lips shut and swallowed. Sora claimed the man interrogating him had been an ineffectual blowhard, but whatever information Sora had relinquished had sped to the palace. They hadn't planned for that kind of efficiency. Kairi couldn't deny it, so she chose to beg forgiveness. "He does, Madame Suliman, and I apologize for having to break him about of your prison, but no one was hurt and we didn't see any alternative. Time was of the essence."

"That you managed to engineer his escape is intriguing, but what he confessed about your mission and the duty of the Keyblade Master—moreso. Especially since the Heartless tell me I ought to have you all killed."

"Trusting them was what destroyed Radiant Garden, don't you understand!?" Kairi said, on the cusp of shouting at the infuriatingly unperturbable woman in front of her. She could feel any control she had over the situation boiling away under the dusty sunlight.

Madame Suliman pursed her lips. "Do you take me for an idiot? I don't trust their words. I trust their fear. They are terrified of the Keyblade and whoever holds it, since whoever holds it will destroy them or die trying. So tell me, Princess Kairi: if my wizards refuse to denounce them as servants, would that make you and your companions enemies of the crown of Ingary and subject to all penalties therein?"

Kairi's mouth went dry with fear, and at that moment realized she had _never _been in control. Madame Suliman's mind had been made up from the moment she laid out the story of Ansem's downfall. She was alone with a woman who was probably the most powerful sorceress in the realm, in the midst of the most densely peopled and well guarded stronghold of her enemy, and she hadn't even noticed. Her only ally was a white lipped ninety-year-old woman shaking ever so lightly beside her.

A sudden buzzing roar alighted outside, cramming the air too full of the noise of the mechanical dragonfly that was its source to give her answer a space. Madame Suliman appeared unconcerned whether her question went answered or not, and sat back in expectant silence while yet another of the ubiquitous pages opened a hidden catch on the glass walls of the greenhouse to admit the latest arrival. He a tall, solidly built man with a generous mustache, dressed in military formals and flying goggles, and strode with lengthy and confident steps to stand between her and Kairi. "Good morning, your Majesty," she greeted him pleasantly, with a deferential nod. It was a feathery thing to say, the tone much too light after she had all but condemned Kairi and her friends to death the breath before. Kairi wanted to run, but didn't know where.

"As you were," he said, waving aside the formality with a flicker of his hands. "Thought I'd drop by rather than sit through another dull war meeting," he said, and chuckled. It was a bubbly, almost boyish sound at odds with the badges of rank that lined his left breast pocket.

"What an honor," Madame Suliman said, looking amused.

"So, who are your guests?"

"Princess Kairi of Radiant Garden, and Wizard Howl's mother, Mrs. Pendragon, "

He turned on his heel to look her over. "Thank you for coming," he said, suddenly both serious and sincere. Sophie rose from the stool and curtsied as low as her stiff knees would allow. Kairi briefly considered trying too, but didn't know to begin and settled on bowing slightly and trying not to be obvious about scanning the room for potential escape routes. "You look a bit flushed, my dear," he said. "Would you be relieved to hear that I've decided to order all wizards under my command to destroy their Heartless servants? One doesn't need to pay them, feed them, barrack them, bury them, or any of those other awfully inconvenient things human soldiers require, but I've found their tendency to murder innocent citizens at random a bit too trying." He blinked once, and the brown of his eyed snapped into gray. Sophie let out a strangled cough.

"Suuuuuliman!" bellowed a masculine voice from deep in the greenery. It was a voice that led armies, and turned out to belong to a man that looked exactly like the one standing in front of her, down to every small detail but the eyes.

He did a double take at the scene spread out before him, and his only reaction upon meeting…himself was to laugh uproariously. "That's the best double you've made of me yet!" he exclaimed, and brandished the sheaf of papers he was clutching his fist in Madame Suliman's direction, "I've got a new battle plan…we're going to beat 'em to a pulp!" He then wheeled about, waving farewell to her with his handful of reports, and went back to his royal business.

"So nice to see you again, Howl," the witch said, once the real king had passed through the greenhouse doors and out of sight.

"Madame Suliman," he said, nodding in acknowledgement. "I kept my oath; I reported when summoned, and offered aid to my King in time of need." He put his hands Kairi's shoulders, pushing her forward. She looked back at him and saw the mustache had disappeared, and the green jacket hung loose around his lanky frame. "But if the last surviving heir to a shattered kingdom wasn't enough to convince you to stop, I doubt there's anything more I can give."

Madame Suliman laughed short and quick. "I think not." The stars within her necklace twinkled brighter. "You will fulfill your obligation to your country, Howl, with your humanity intact or not. I think your curse is already cracking it around the edges."

She continued regarding him impassively, and this time it was Sophie that spoke out, for the first time since entering the palace. "Now I understand why Howl was so concerned about coming here. And what happened to the Witch of the Waste? Eh? You lure sorcerers here, and if they don't agree to help with your horrible plans, you strip them of their free will and turn them into beasts!"

Madame Suliman did not answer Sophie's accusations, looking like it was beneath her, but tapped her staff once on the footrest of her chair. Like the ripples of a stone tossed into a pond the tip pierced the mundane wicker and revealed a circle of starry sky. Kairi could feel the magic prickling in the air and over her skin, a powerful spell building like a lightning strike, and gave up on diplomacy by throwing a spear of ice at the chair. She doubted it would be much of a threat, but might serve as some kind of distraction. Her target didn't even blink, and Kairi's amateurish attack struck an invisible wall three feet in front of Madame Suliman and boiled into vapor.

Kairi was conscious of a sudden distant roaring, and from the flagstones whitecaps roared into being before her eyes, sweeping away the greenhouse beneath a darkened stormy sea. She inhaled deeply and braced herself for the rush of freezing water. It crashed down on them, tearing at her hair and clothes, but after a few moments she realized she felt no burn of salt in her eyes and nose, and her feet were still planted solidly on the invisible floor—it was an illusion, terrifying at first but imperfect on closer inspection. Howl didn't shrink from it either. Madame Suliman curled her lip and abandoned that tactic, and the curtains of seawater drew back to reveal a sunset above the countryside—but the perspective was all wrong. Kairi looked down, and let out a little cry when she saw the hills and rivers far below the soles of her shoes.

The glints of Madame Suliman's sapphire necklace brightened more still, and as one the five-pointed stars separated from the stones that held them. They rose to what had once been the ceiling and was now a clouded sky, and fell again with the sound of gentle chimes blown by no earthly wind. When they struck the floor, they grew larger, shifting shape until they looked like sketches of a human body with delicately pointed limbs and sparking nimbus of light for a head.

The star-children began to dance. It was a simple, beguiling step that ringed them like a noose. They sang in soft voices in a language whose words Kairi didn't understand, but if felt, somehow, that she'd heard them before. The song settled into her ears and urged her to release her grip on Howl's jacket, release her fear, let go of the barriers she kept round herself. Madame Suliman's deadly threat seemed as distant as the clouds of rose and buttercream that veiled the sunset. It occurred to her, distantly, that the sun ought not to be setting, since she left Howl's house in the morning, and for that matter she shouldn't be looking _down_ on a sunset either, but the struggling bursts of logic were smothered by the notes pillowing on her brain.

Howl cried out, an almost animal sound. The song of the stars was thrown into discord, their power spent on the spell of the music. The charm that wrapped them was torn away from inside the circle, and Kairi felt a sudden sickening wrongness beside her, like the breath of a hungry beast down her neck. The hand that gripped her shoulder contracted and became talons of vicious sharpness that bit into the fabric of her dress and the skin beneath. The air smelled suddenly of carrion. Wings unfurled above her head, tattered, black, and powerful. She chanced a look at Howl's face, twisted with rage and no longer truly his own. It was then that Kairi realized the spell's purpose. It wasn't meant to capture or confine them, but to _release_.

"Howl look out!" Sophie screamed, and Kairi caught a flash of red—Madame Suliman's staff—impale the space her belly had recently occupied. A sudden rush of air as those wings beat once against the stone and the canopy of dark sky was suddenly shattered, figuratively and literally, as the three of them hurtled through the illusion and the roof of the greenhouse in a shower of glass. They alighted onto the dragonfly hover Howl had arrived in, Sophie bouncing into the rear seat and Kairi the pilot's. He flipped a switch and it bounded into the air. Howl stood, bracing himself on the back of Kairi's seat with one careless hand on the wheel. It had reverted to a reassuringly human pink, and as rather pale, with long fingers and nails bitten to the quick. His shirtsleeves were in tatters. She looked up at him. He was grinning into the wind as if nothing had happened.

"Looks like you get to fly!" he said, and let go.

Kairi yelped and swooped in to grab the controls. It was an old wheel like the kind she'd seen on sailing ships, only much smaller, about the size of a saucer, and mounted on a bar that levered up and down to control the pitch. Riku was a much surer hand with flying contraptions of all stripes, but she had picked up a thing or two. She glanced behind her and caught sight of a squadron of soldiers on their hovers as they rose from the palace complex in pursuit. It looked like there were machine guns mounted on the noses. She pressed hard on the foot pedal she assumed was the accelerator hoping fervently they were more valuable alive than dead.

"Leave them to me," Howl said, noting her concern. "I can give you five minutes of invisibility. Use it well. You can find your way to the Castle with the ring—just summon Calcifer with your heart." There was a brief tearing sensation and he peeled off atop a mirror copy of their own craft, complete with Sophie gripping the back seat in terror.

Kairi leaned hard on the wheel shaft to get them some space above the snarls of power lines and laundry that crisscrossed the city streets. "Are you okay back there, Sophie?" she yelled, over the buzzing of the engines.

"Fine, fine! Now that nobody's likely to open fire on us, this is kind of fun!"

Kairi thought of Calcifer. A faint beam of red light appeared, aiming to her left, so faint she had to squint to make it out. She spun the wheel and took them in a wide arc to the right course.

They were safely on the way back, but how long would "safe" last once she was back on the ground? Once Madame Suliman's secret police began hunting the three of them in earnest? It wasn't Heartless, Nobodies, gods, ghosts, or demons that Kairi dreaded fighting the most, who left no corpses or regrets behind, but men acting of their own free will. Killing people was messy. Kairi had never done it, and although the Keyblade would just as readily cut through flesh and bone as the mysterious substance of the Heartless, the thought of doing so made her sick. But now she may not have much of a choice. She'd lost their best chance at simple, bloodless end to the Heartless on this world, if it had ever been there at all.

As they flew on, with Kairi stewing in her apprehension, the shaft of light flickered, blinking out and in again across its axis. She tried to banish visions of Sora or Riku captured and executed because of her missteps and concentrated on Calcifer's dancing flames against the hearthstones. It was a hard thing to do. The specters of her imagination wouldn't let her alone.

Twenty minutes in, the light had settled on a point behind her right shoulder, and she was forced to give up and set the glider down next to a patch of spinach. While Sophie looked on quizzically, Kairi twisted the ring around her finger once, then twice, tapped it, breathed on it, shook it, and cursed at it very quietly with the sort of language she did not like to make widely known that she knew. The sharp little beam of light flickered once like a magnet dragged round a compass, then snapped back to its previous point shining against her arm. "Sophie, I'm _really_ sorry, but I think I broke it."

"What do you mean broke it?"

Kairi looked up at the sky to get her bearings. "That's north." She pointed, in the direction of the light. "The Waste is southwest of Kingsbury, right?"

"It is."

"Then the light's pointing back the way we came, not home. I'm sorry. Sora and Riku should be waiting for us back at the castle, so it should work anyway, but…it's just not. I can't concentrate well enough."

"Let me see it?" Sophie asked. Kairi pulled it off and handed it to her. It was snug on her own finger, and she didn't see how it could possibly have fit over Sophie's swollen knuckles, but it did. She squinted at it, and a strong, clear beam shot out immediately to spear the southwest point of the compass rose. Sophie shrugged. "If you let me steer, I promise I will do my best not to kill us."

Seeing no alternative, Kairi agreed. She briefly explained the controls and a few critical points of aviation and let Sophie take over. For someone of such advanced age she was a remarkably quick study, so Kairi settled back into the rear seat to pass the hours it would take to fly from Kingsbury to the Castle. She couldn't keep her mind on Calcifer, not when so many enigmas had unfolded themselves. Eventually her thoughts wandered away from idle and bloody speculation into the mystery of the exchange in the greenhouse.

If Howl _was _aNobody, like Riku had first suspected, what happened wasn't possible. Only a being with a heart could surrender it to Darkness, and it was not an event she could easily mistake. Sora had related what happened to Malificent when she had allowed the Darkness to consume her. Somehow Madame Suliman, whom Kairi suspected had uncovered secrets unknown to any sorcerer or mystic of the Known Worlds, had done the same to Howl against his will, or at least tried.

They spoke to each other with a familiarity that was tinged with bitterness, like old friends turned enemies…or an apprentice turned against his master. The illusions she cast were meant to unbalance him—the first to frighten him into doing something stupid on pure instinct, but the second more subtle. And it worked, but Kairi had no idea why. Somehow the vision of the stars had distracted him enough to allow her to cast her spell without realizing he was being entrapped.

And to tangle the thread of the mystery further, the childlike song and delicate tinkling the stars made as they hit the ground was wrenchingly_ familiar_. Kairi had seen so many falling stars only once before in her life, and began there. The chain of memories that led back to that night was so long the links were rusted and snapped, but ever since Naminé had returned to her, it was possible to pull her past within reach of her present. She closed her eyes and traced the links, slowly, hand over hand, tuning out the rushing wind in her ears and the distant rumble of thunder.

The night began when she awoke in the clutches of a demon. The only things she remembered of him were his eyes, which glowed orange, and his rough hands, as he tossed her on the beach of a strange sea and disappeared in a column of black fire. He had left her under a sky so wide and terrifying that it might swallow her at any moment. She was miserable; exhausted, hungry, and utterly alone. The bay she hadn't yet come to know like the back of her hand was dark and forbidding. She curled up against the foreign scent of salt on the air and lay shivering and crying on the sand from fear rather than cold, watching the waves lap against the shore.

Suddenly one of the stars came loose from its moorings, flaring brighter than its fellows as it fell across the sky. It frightened her at first, and she shrank away, but as the star fell beneath the horizon and drowned, it cried out to her. The terrified voice knocked around the inside of her head without first passing through her ears, and when its cries stopped her heart spasmed in sympathy. It hurt inside like sliver of her own heart had been cut away. She realized it had been crying out for help—her help. More flared across the darkness above her, and she scrubbed away her tears and struggled into the tepid sea to try to catch them before they were extinguished. But she was too small and too tired; her chubby legs couldn't carry her fast enough through the waves to save even one. She pushed deeper and floundered, swallowing seawater. Her arms and eyes and heart all burned.

Then another voice called out to her, from behind, the direction of the land. It wasn't the ethereal cries of the stars, but a man's voice, cracking with alarm that the dark spot bobbing in the sea wasn't a piece of flotsam but a little girl. She was lifted from the water, still struggling wearily against the arms that held her, to reach again for the falling stars. Her rescuer was strong but not cruelly so, and when he'd waded back to shore she saw for the first time the man she quickly learned to call 'Daddy'.

Kairi remembered that desperation in the water, but never, until now, understood it. In a way, she and the falling stars were one; they were fragments of Radiant Garden's heart, the _planet's_ heart, the very life of her world. That sound she heard in the greenhouse was the sound of a piece of a world's heart shattering against the unforgiving ground. Where Howl and Madame Suliman had heard it she couldn't begin to guess.

Her face felt suddenly wet, but the drops are too cold to be tears. "Burn and blast it," Sophie said from the pilot's seat, breaking Kairi's grasp on the memory. "We're flying into a raincloud. It'll ruin your dress, as if it hasn't seen enough action already."


	10. Chapter 10

Sora was lying on his back engaging in a staring contest with a fat-bodied spider dangling from the ceiling. He was pretty sure the spider was winning by several orders of magnitude, since it had way more eyes than he did, and for that matter may not have even been able to blink. Sora sighed. Sitting around waiting for other people to do interesting things was probably his least favorite activity, or at least close to it, since Algebra finals didn't feature prominently in his life anymore. Kairi had been gone for an hour at least, and it would probably be hours more before she got back. Knowing King Mickey as well as he did, he got to kick the line and sit down for a chat whenever he wanted, but he was vaguely aware there were rules of conduct about talking to royalty. He never followed them, but they probably involved scratchy clothes, bowing, and a lot of time sitting in uncomfortable-looking chairs.

"Riku?" he said finally. "My butt is going numb."

Riku looked up at him and stifled a yawn. He was sprawled on his side on the floor next to the bookshelves, where he'd found a volume on the many and varied products of Ingary's airshipyards and was consuming the contents with mild interest. It was only somewhat informative, however, since a lot of the middle section was stuck together with something gummy and brown that probably used to be applesauce. He shut the book on his finger to keep the place, sat up, and shook out the arm he'd been leaning his head on. "I can help you with that, although somebody _could_ walk in on us at any moment. Kinkier than your usual."

There was a wad of paper on the floor behind Sora's head. He scrunched it tighter and lobbed it more or less at Riku's chest, although it was tough to gauge the angle accurately upside down, and it landed with a little 'plick' on the shelf near his shoulder instead. "If that's what you had in mind, you're on your own," Sora said. "I wanted to check out what's behind Door Number Four while Calcifer is snoozing."

"That black one is calling your name, isn't it," Riku said. It was the only one of the four they hadn't been through yet.

"Like, really loud, for _hours_. Are you coming or not?"

Riku closed the book with a quiet but definitive thump and got to his feet. "You know what curiosity killed?" he asked, but offered Sora a hand up anyway.

"I'm not a cat very often," he answered. "Let's go." Sora grabbed a handful of shimmering bottles in various colors from Kairi's backpack, just in case, and stashed them in convenient pockets. He chanced a look back at the hearth, where Calcifer was still out cold (or however a fire demon could be said to sleep), and only the tips of his body peaked out of the logs. Sora put his hand on the knob and clicked it twice. The marker above the door spun about after it, and the woolly light drifting through the half-circle window above the door suddenly became a flood.

"If you're going to be sneaking through forbidden doors, you might want to think about doing it more quiet-like," Calcifer said nonchalantly from behind Sora's back.

Sora started guiltily. "Are you going to try to stop us?" he asked over his shoulder.

"No—quite the contrary. I was waiting for you to start poking around in there. Howl has a lot of things to hide, but none of them are through the black door. All the mysterious forbidden blah-blah-blah is to keep the squirt out, since whinging aside, I'd sort of like him to live to see puberty."

"You know where it leads?" Riku asked.

Calcifer nodded.

"And?" Riku prompted impatiently.

"And nothing. I can't tell you. Have you ever wondered what the opposite of a secret is? It's that little piece of information," Calcifer said.

Riku scowled at him. "That doesn't even make any sense. And do you have any _idea_ how annoying mysterious mystical guides are? Every time we meet one that doesn't cough up all the facts out of some misguided sense of theatricality it makes me want to punch a puppy." Calcifer snorted. "I am only _barely_ exaggerating."

"I wish I could tell you more. I really honestly do. But I can't. I was c…c…caaaaugh!" he choked out angrily, and let out a cross 'woomph' of smoke into the chimney. He recomposed himself, and concentrated harder. "There is something through that door you need to attend to, for this world to become…to…be…uh…safe. Only you, because…because…you're special," he finished lamely. "Real special. So special trying to talk about you makes me sound like an idiot. Ahah. Howl has been trying to handle it on his own and failing miserably, and he's too busy wallowing in self-pity for it to occur to him to ask you for your help."

"The Keyhole?" Sora offered.

Calcifer said nothing, though not for lack of effort. Finally, he settled on: "Howl couldn't do it. Tried. And be careful."

"Thanks, Calcifer," Sora said, summoned his Keyblade, and pushed open the door.

-ooo-

It was the only door still on its hinges in the whole place. Sora and Riku stepped out of what had once been an elegant edifice of glazed beige brick, one of four that slumped like bleached skeletons around the square. The ground was paved with squares of pitted granite, and the shattered bodies of stately nymphs in cast concrete rasped under their tread. Not even weeds had the courage the spatter the rubble with a little color and reclaim the space from absent human hands. Sora wrinkled his nose, recalling the subtle scent of the place with distaste. "It smells like Hollow Bastion used to smell. All dusty and dead."

Riku nodded. It was cursed ground. Dead ground. It smelled like nothing beside dust and rock because nothing living was willing to set down feet or roots. "They'll be watching us. Let's split up, but don't go any further than shouting distance at most." They chose one of the other buildings, at random. The twisted bronze plaque beside the doors read "_--stitute of Natural Scie---" _beneath the accumulated grime.

Sora took a left where Riku took a right and wandered slowly through the rooms. The roof had caved in and most of the walls, too, and there wasn't much that hadn't burned. He found blackened wooden desks that crumbled at a touch, scorched books, shattered glassware, and half a painful-looking surgical device that proclaimed itself to be _Property of Greyslake Research Campus, RSA_. Listlessly he shifted a pile of rubble with his Keyblade. The brick skittered aside to reveal the sleeve of a dusty tweed coat, a pistol, and the five mummified fingers that were still clutching it. More of the brick shifted. The sleeve wasn't attached to anything else, and fell with a dry crunch to the ground.

"Riku!" he shouted as loud as he could.

Riku came running down the open hallway and swung around with his left hand on the the doorframe, weapon at the ready, but relaxed when he saw Sora was alone.

"What the hell was—" Riku began.

"There are bodies. Bones. Pieces of people," Sora whispered, looking sick. "The Heartless don't leave bodies behind. What happened here?"

"I don't know. Maybe he got lucky," Riku said, without irony, and swept his eyes over the scorched and crumbled walls uneasily. Heartless had little interest in leveling buildings, and only a horde of Darksides would have been able to wreck such havoc with sturdy masonry. The continued their grim explorations, but didn't split off again. They found three more bodies in more pieces as they shuffled through the rubble-strewn corridors of the school, two in lab coats and one in a blue military uniform lying in a scattering of his spent shells. In any other wilderness they would have been long gone to scavengers large and small, but here they remained where they had fallen.

The back exit was partially blocked where the decorative arch had collapsed, and through it Riku could just make out a lake and more buildings beyond that seemed to mark the center of the complex. A man-high block of sparkling white stone stood in the center of the water. He could almost see the waves of Darkness that sloughed off of it like wine from an overflowing glass. He stepped up on a convenient stone near the bottom of the pile of rubble, testing each hand and foothold to make sure it would support his weight. Sora followed behind him.

He crested it quickly and was about to leap down the other side of the pile when he realized what the bulbous metal cylinder sticking out of it actually _was_. He pulled himself back up with a sharp breath, mere inches from touching it with the toe of his shoe. "Sora, get down. Very carefully. Don't let _anything_ come loose, not even a pebble, if you want to keep all your limbs attached."

"What did you—"

"Shut up and get _down,_" Riku ordered through clenched teeth.

Sora wasn't going to argue with that tone. He did, and made room for Riku to do the same. He yanked Sora away by the sleeve in the direction they'd come, walking as quickly as his legs would carry him. "It was a bomb," he explained, pulling Sora along. "Almost stepped on it and killed us both. We're taking the long way around."

"But I thought they declared war less than a year ago…it looks like it was abandoned way more time than that. And this place is in the middle of nowhere. Why would the Strangians..." he asked, jogging along beside Riku.

Riku turned sharply into one of the classrooms, which had a promising hole in the wall. He looked back to Sora. "Do you _really_ think Strangia was responsible for this?"

Riku's question was a rhetorical one, since it was brutally obvious to both of them what the answer was. The evidence was all around them, in the thoroughly shattered bricks and unburied corpses. "No," Sora admitted in a whisper.

"Cowards," Riku growled. "They couldn't contain the Heartless, so they bombed the whole place—even though there were still people on the ground. It must have been a firestorm."

The air was kissed with spring and warm even under the scant cover of clouds, but Sora shivered, and looking slightly gray under his deep tan. "We're going to find the Keyhole, lock it, and leave. This is worse than the old Bastion Castle grounds. Way worse."

"I saw a lake further down," Riku said, turning his mind away from the lonely bones and wishing they had the time and tools to bury them. "All the roads lead to it. If this complex was built to study the Keyhole, I'm guessing it's going to be there."

Sora numbly let him lead the way through the gap in the wall and down the footpath that connected the building with the lake. An altar of white stone stood in the center of the water, looking battered and dirty but miraculously whole. Under the grime and dead lichen it shone faintly around the lock symbol carved into the center. They knew, instinctively, that it was older than the surrounding buildings by centuries, perhaps even millennia. The pool bottom was blackened with settled soot and rippling faintly in the breeze. "Something should've tried to jump us by now," Riku said. "This is way too quiet."

Sora's answer was to pick up a flat stone from the edge and pitch it into the lake. It skipped once and sank. Nothing came boiling out of the water to object to the disturbance. He crouched at the edge and tried experimentally dipping in a finger. The water was bitterly cold but did not look deep, and the swim to the shore of the island in the center was a scant fifty feet, albeit a freezing fifty feet. "Don't see a boat. Guess I'm swimming." He stripped down to his pants, rolled those up to the knee, and thrust the wad of shoes and clothes at Riku, who was too preoccupied with the forbidding silence to say anything lewd about Sora's state of partial undress. Sora stepped in, nearly yelping at the way the cold sucked at his skin, but clamped his teeth shut and continued wading.

There was something here, Riku was sure of it, something big and old and mean. He felt like they were being watched. Granted, after the trials he had endured this was not an unusual sensation for him, and often completely unjustified, but just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they _aren't_ out to get you. He tossed Sora's clothes aside on a flat stone and summoned his Keyblade. Nothing moved in the ruins, or in the water, or in the air. Sora had gone too deep to stand and begun slicing through the water with practiced and confident strokes. Riku gripped the hilt of his blade tighter against the slickness of his palms and tried to ignore the staccato drum solo pounding in his chest.

Sora was nearly there—twenty feet…fifteen…and then he disappeared below the surface so quickly he didn't even have time to scream. The ripples he left behind parted and disappeared. Riku swore. Sora was a strong swimmer and more practiced at fighting underwater than he. If he didn't surface soon, or give Riku _some _kind of target to start beating on, wading in after him probably wouldn't do much good.

Suddenly the water shifted as if the pond's bed had been tipped, and a spume the size of a tree trunk shot up from near the bank and executed a scientifically suspect right angle turn to smash into Riku's chest with enough force to lift him from his feet and toss him into a crumbling wall. Gasping for air against the sudden blow, Riku realized much too late the Heartless wasn't in the water.

It was the water.

Half a dozen more tentacles rose from the pond, one holding a struggling Sora in its grip. His wrists were twisted and pinned behind his back by its coils and the tip wrapped tight around his neck. As Riku watched it shuddered and constricted like the body of a python. Sora arched convulsively and struggled harder, all in silence, mouthing spells he lacked the breath to cast. Two of the free tentacles cast about for a target and shot toward Riku again, but this time he was prepared, and they burst apart against the dark shield he summoned in their path. Riku let it down for just long enough to hurl his Keyblade at the one grasping Sora. It was severed, and he fell, almost free, until another tentacle shot out and caught him by the ankle, and the barrage against Riku's shield doubled in ferocity.

Sora coughed and sucked in as much air as his starved lungs would hold. He twisted his head around and saw the living water was pounding against Riku's shield with blow after blow after blow, forcing him on the defensive. The beast was too occupied with trying to snake around Riku's shields and didn't try to wrap him in the stranglehold again—a mistake for it and an opening for him. Sora blasted it with a blizzard spell to slow it down and give Riku a chance to breathe. A thick skin of ice crackled across its surface where the searing cold fixed its shape in place. The tentacles withdrew in confusion, probing its frozen body. Riku dropped his shield and was about to add his own blizzard spells to the fight when the sheaf of ice cracked and dropped into the lake. More angered than hurt, the Heartless hefted three chunks of the ice and lobbed them at Riku's head in retaliation, which only barely missed.

It swung Sora around to inspect him with its single eye. It was bigger than his head, and lacked both whites and an iris—a void of darkness. The slick skin beneath it creased and parted, and its mouth began to open, wide enough to swallow him whole. This fight would be over soon, one way or the other. If they were both killed the Keyhole might never be sealed in time. He looked at Riku, looked at the Heartless, and decided it was time to do something heroic…and tried not to think about how much it was probably going to hurt—if he even lived. He arched and swung himself back, and let the momentum jab his Keyblade at its eye. He barked out the words of the spell before the beast could silence him.

The whipcrack of the lightning echoed against ruins. It surged from the end of his blade to the single staring eye, to its core, through its tentacles, and back out again…through Sora, still in its grip and in the path of the electrical current. It hurt more than plunging the Dark Keyblade into his chest had hurt, like he had been thrown into an avalanche, but lasted only a fraction of a second. The beast shrieked and collapsed with the sound of a rushing waterfall. Already mercifully unconscious, Sora fell with it.

Riku cried out in anguish and took a running leap into the lake. The water was steaming into nothing as the massive Heartless died, and what was left was churning and murky black. He saw a scrap of white cloth bob to the surface to his left, and splashed toward it. He grabbed Sora's limp body under one arm and struggled up the rocky bank.

Sora stirred a little, just enough to make Riku's heart leap with relief, and started to cough. He couldn't hold his head up right, his arms were too rubbery to support his weight, and his ankle was badly burned where the Heartless had grabbed hold of him, but he was breathing. Riku held him up until he stopped retching into the gravel long enough to choke down a mouthful of elixir. He sagged against Riku, still coughing, but not as convulsively.

"What kind of shit-for-brains dumbfuck move was that?!" Riku muttered into his hair, although the tight embrace took all the bite out of the words. "_Water conducts electricity, _you _moron!_"

Sora didn't answer at first, letting the quiet stretch out so long Riku was afraid he'd lapsed into unconsciousness again. "Sorta what I was counting on," Sora whispered finally, through chattering teeth. "I got C's in science, Riku. Gimme a little credit."

"So…you went and fried yourself so at least one of us would survive to seal the Keyhole?" he asked.

"Mmmm-hmmm," Sora murmured. "Worked, dinnit?"

"Yeah," Riku agreed. "But don't ever scare me like that again. I thought I'd lost you." Sora mumbled his apology into Riku's neck. He didn't let go of the younger boy, on the pretext that the spring breeze was icy on their wet clothes, and Sora still shivering violently. He wasn't usually much for gestures of tenderness, but bent over a little awkwardly to brush Sora's forehead with a kiss, since it seemed like the right thing to do. Sora sighed and huddled closer. Eventually he did have to let go, as much as he was loath to—their original goal had not yet been realized. Cringing, Riku unknotted his arms, waded back into the pool and brought his Keyblade to bear on the lock. The ancient magic warmed him a little as it flowed into the stone altar, or least made the walk back to shore seem less torturous. Sora had dressed, clumsily, into the meantime, as little protection as a soggy shirt was in this weather. The burn on his leg was healed, but his limbs still felt about as steady as chocolate pudding—whatever riot the electricity had unleashed on his nervous system was beyond a potion's ability to instantly repair.

With Sora leaning heavily against Riku, they picked their way back to the door that opened into the welcoming warmth of the castle in the Waste. Markl was waiting for them when Riku pushed open the door, lying on the floor studying a spellbook and chewing on a piece of stale teabread. He shot to his feet when he realized the marker had clicked into 'black'. "Howl said no one should…it's too dangerous," he babbled. "What were you_ doing_ out there?"

"We're monster-slaying experts, kid. Don't try it at home. Got any towels?" Riku asked, as they pushed past Markl and Sora collapsed gratefully into one of the kitchen chairs with his head pillowed in his arms.

"Mmm-hmm, in the upstairs linen closet, end of the hall. Sora, um…" Markl began, chewing on his lip, "are you okay? You don't look that great."

Sora turned his head a little and gave him reassuring a thumbs-up. "Struck by lightning; almost drowned. I've had worse. I'll be fine."

"Oh," Markl said stupidly, looking horrified that Sora had endured things that fell under the category of _worse_. "Um…let me see if Calcifer'll let me put the kettle on." He looked hopefully at the hearth fire.

"Did you do it?" the demon asked nervously. Sora mumbled an affirmative, and Calcifer sighed an enormous sigh of relief. "The answer is yes, Markl. But just this once. Cause of them. Don't be getting any ideas about dropping a pot of soup on my head tomorrow. Sophie doing it is bad enough."

Markl scrubbed the kettle down, filled it with water, and held it out to Calcifer, who shuffled it around on the grate until he was comfortable. Riku returned with an armful of towels and dropped them in front of Sora. "Kairi hasn't come back yet, I assume? Or Howl or Sophie?"

"Master Howl followed after them in disguise. It shouldn't take them _this _long, at least I don't think so. The court's kind of a nasty place. He complained about it a lot. I hope nothing happened to them."

"Happened? Happened like what?" Riku asked suspiciously, pausing in the middle of unbuttoning his wet and muddy shirt.

Markl looked suddenly embarrassed, like he realized he said something he shouldn't have. "I dunno. Howl just…he always said they weren't nice people and when I get my title I shouldn't ever go work there."

Riku snorted. "Not _nice?_ That was the word he chose? Take a seat and I can give you a whole sack of more accurate words to describe those murderous snatchrags."

"Stop it, Riku, he's like eight," Sora warned him. "He doesn't need details. Or your vocabulary."

"Nine," Markl corrected.

"Fine," Riku conceded, to indulge the tired and injured Sora, who was glaring at him somewhat muzzily with narrowed eyes.

Markl looked unsure about whether he wanted to press the point, but Sophie's grandmotherly influence won out, and he backed down and excused himself upstairs to let them change. There was exactly one set of dry clothes for each of them in Kairi's seemingly bottomless pack that they'd picked up in Market Chipping. They tossed their dripping clothes over the chair in front of the fire and let the heat sink into their chilled muscles. The kettle began to sing, and Calcifer lifted it obediently off his head and poured it into the teapot Markl had set down for them. "Thanks. I mean it. I'm sorry I couldn't give you more warning about the guardian."

The prospect of having something hot in his palms perked Sora up a little, and he pushed his face off the table and sat up. "It's alright. I know you tried. And we're pretty used to that kind of thing. I just shoulda been more careful."

"At least Howl will be—" Calcifer stopped short and flared suddenly. A ripple of mysterious energy flowed out from the hearth, and the castle shuddered for a moment, metal screeching against metal, as if every steel plate and stone suddenly remembered they should by all rights be lying in a heap in the Waste. Shafts of light yawned through the cracks in the floorboards. The room contracted with sickening sucking sensation, like it was being pulled into itself, and then, just as abruptly, snapped back, flooding the room with puffs of dust.

"What in the hell was that?" Riku yelled, jumping to his feet with teapot in hand, and slopping tea all over the floor.

"Bad," Calcifer said blearily. "I think their audience is over."

"Are you okay?" Sora asked him.

"I think so. At least for now. Drink your tea and don't even bother asking me what that was about," Calcifer said, and disappeared beneath a heavy log with a puff of ash.


	11. Chapter 11

With Kairi's somewhat frantic direction Sophie came down for a jarring but otherwise perfectly acceptable landing, which she defined as one where neither craft nor passengers broke anything critical when they hit the dirt. Her already heavy, sodden dress picked up a layer of dust as she walked to the door and hammered on it, Sophie trailing behind. The façade of curls the hairdresser had erected with hot irons and pomade had crumbled under the onslaught of the weather and hung in clammy strands against her face. The crown had slipped too. She tried pulling it off and it got tangled in her hair. She pulled harder.

"How'd it—nevermind," Markl said when Kairi pushed past him and, having finally succeeded in extricating the tiara from her snarled hair, threw it against the wall with a forlorn clang. Sora had been trying to sleep off the aftereffects of his heroism in Sophie's cot and shot awake at the noise.

"What happened?" Riku asked, rising from his place at the table. It was now sunset, far past the time she'd told them to expect her.

"I messed up," she said despondently. "If you were planning on going out somewhere tonight, don't."

Sophie looked similarly sorrowful, but crushed it down and affixed a concerned maternal expression on her face and tut-tutted at her. "You ought to change before you catch a cold, Kairi, come on."

Kairi sighed. "Right. Markl…do you mind if I borrow your bedroom for a bit to change?"

"Nuh-uh. Just…um…don't open the closet door, or you won't be able to close it again."

"Sophie? Do you think you could help me get this horrible thing off?" Kairi said, unable to strike the pleading completely from her voice. Luckily, Sophie did not mind at all, and followed her into the bedroom. She struggled valiantly with the wet laces before Kairi huffed impatiently and found her a pair of scissors from Markl's desk. They snicked through the ribbons lashing on the dress and corset until Kairi was standing in nothing but a damp shift and feeling more like she could breath again. Sophie disappeared for a bit, drying off herself, before she stumped back down the hall, having scrounged up a clean towel and one of Howl's larger coats. Kairi took them both with profuse thanks.

"Princess Kairi?" Sophie asked hesitantly as Kairi scrubbed at her hair with the towel as if it had done something to deeply offend her person. "What happened to Howl, when Madame Suliman transformed him?"

"Just Kairi, please. I actually quit the princess gig a couple years ago. And…she didn't transform him. It was a spell of releasing, I think. It was meant to pull out the stoppers that keep that beast confined, not impose a shape from the outside."

Sophie sat down heavily on the edge of Markl's unmade bed with her skirt clutched tight in her two fists. The curtains were drawn and the light filtering through seemed to be play tricks on Kairi's eyes, since her profile seemed less harsh, her hair more voluminous, her cheeks fuller.

Kairi stopped scrubbing and let the towel drop to her side. "Were you scared of him?" Kairi asked gently.

"No. Not of him. For him," she admitted. Her voice had smoothed too, losing the gravelly distortions of an aged throat. For one disorienting moment Kairi saw double, a vision so fleeting it was blink-and-you've-lost-it, of a young woman no older than she with strands of silver hair twining over her shoulders that sparkled in the fading sunlight.

"Oh?" Kairi said, taking a step toward her. It was the wrong move. Her vision snapped back, and only the hunched old woman was curled over the bed once more.

Sophie started, realizing what she had just said, and added, hastily, "If he turns into a giant beast on a permanent basis, I'm out of a job. You _know_ what's happening, Kairi—I don't suppose you could comfort an old woman and tell her that you really are a Strangian agent or somesuch, and the entire conversation you had with Madame Suliman about the end of the world was a very clever lie?"

"I could. It wouldn't be true," she said. "But Sora hasn't lost a world yet. All those places he told Howl about—Agrabah, the Pridelands, Port Royal, Atlantica…there's all still here and stronger than they ever were before. "

"But it happened to your home, didn't it? It could happen here. And I thought invasion by the Strangians was the worst we'd be facing," she said, and let out a gusty sigh. "You're fighting so hard for a country that isn't even your own. I know I'm just an old woman, I can't pick up a sword and fight like you can, but if there's anything I can do, anything at _all _to put an end to this, tell me."

"I will," Kairi assured her.

The front door slammed again. "Howl's back!" Markl hollered redundantly up the stairs.

Sophie bent to retrieve the sodden, torn, and slightly bloodied ruin of her dress before following Kairi down the stairs. "Hello, Howl. I think Markl and I ought to do a basket of wash since the rainshower's done with," she announced, with forced cheerfulness. "Anybody have laundry?"

"Now? But I wanted to hear—" the boy complained.

Sophie shooed his whining away. "Grab those things off the chairs, and the soap and line and tub. Come on. Wash day's not so bad with two people."

Grumbling at the unfairness this, Markl collected a mound of clothes and the appropriate equipment and shuffled out of the door. Kairi mouthed a 'thank you' at Sophie as she passed by with the washtub, which she acknowledged with a sad and knowing smile.

Once the door had shut and Markl was out of earshot, Howl spoke. "That didn't go as well as I'd hoped. Madame Suliman has only gotten more stubborn, not less." He pulled a chair out from under the kitchen table and sat down in it, back to the fire, and folded his arms over the back. "I had _not_ expected her to resort to violence."

"Violence?" Sora asked. "It was that bad?"

"No. It's worse," Kairi said savagely. "I couldn't convince Madame Suliman, she knows about Sora and that he was captured with a Keyblade, and she almost ran me through with her staff trying to pin Howl."

"Maybe there's somebody else we could try? The King himself? Maybe a disguise? A _something_?" Sora offered, without much conviction.

Kairi shook her head vehemently. "I'm not done, Sora. She knows what the duty of a Keyblade Master is. The Heartless told her. And since the Heartless are technically Crown property, guess what that makes _us_."

"Enemies of the Crown," Howl supplied casually. "You all can now be shot on sight—congratulations. As such, I would recommend you don't return to your hotel."

Sora paled. "You're not serious. I mean…we haven't…they wouldn't…"

"After what we found, you honestly don't believe they're capable of that? " Riku asked him, voice tight.

"_What you found_?" Howl said, suddenly stiffening.

"We decided to do a little investigating behind the black door marker," Riku said carefully, waiting to see how he'd react.

Howl sighed and looked over his shoulder. "And you _let_ them, Calcifer? You knew that my problem to deal with. Nobody else's."

Calcifer rose up higher, puffing himself up against the logs, although his voice wavered. "I didn't let them. I encouraged them."

The shadows in the room seemed to lengthen and grow thick and sticky. Howl rose, and regarded Calcifer with subtle fury in his voice. "You disobeyed a direct command. The guardian was too powerful and too clever to risk more lives trying to overcome it."

Sora levered himself up from the bed, grimacing a little, and planted himself between Calcifer and Howl. "He did the right thing. That wasn't a problem you could have solved yourself. Riku and I killed the Heartless guarding the Keyhole and sealed it."

Kairi and Howl both looked startled. "Nice job," Kairi commented. "At least _somebody_ got something useful done today."

"And we saw how your government tried to 'deal' with it—bombing the research facility into oblivion before it had been fully evacuated, to keep the Heartless from spreading. Like that _helped_," Riku said bitterly.

Kairi's head snapped to look at Riku. "_WHAT? _No…never mind," she said, shaking her head. "I believe it after what _I _saw today—Madame Suliman all but admitted they've been making Heartless of the conscripted wizards, like the cousin of that poor girl Sora rescued in Market Chipping. They don't write home because they aren't human enough to remember they ever had one."

"Are theredepths the court sorcerers won't sink to? And…mother of….," Riku muttered, as another unpleasant realization hit him. "Now that she knows Wizard Pendragon is just one of your aliases, won't her goons come knocking _here_? We're not any safer in this house than outside, and for that matter neither are Grandma or the kid."

Howl didn't look overly concerned. "That's a problem I intend to remedy in a moment. There's an abandoned shopfront in Market Chipping that ought to serve the purpose nicely," Howl said.

"What purpose?" Kairi asked.

"We're moving," he said, and walked over to place hand on the front door, pausing to affix each of them with an almost pleading look. "And don't tell Markl any of this. He doesn't need to know. Not yet."

He pushed open the door and leaned out over the frame. Sophie was kneeling at the lake just outside the door and trying to scrub gravy out of one of Markl's shirts. He resumed his usual tone of faint amusement to address them. "You can finish up in a moment, Sophie. Markl, how would you like to help me move before we have to entertain some…uninvited guests?"

Markl whooped, jumped up from his pile of clothes and dove for the door. "Sorry Sophie, but magic beats laundry any day," he called over his shoulder.

Howl stopped him with a casual hand across the doorframe. "If you can tell me how many parts rock salt to ground wyvern bone for a binding circle, you can mix it."

"Seventeen to one unless it's a new moon, Master Howl. Which it isn't," Markl answered confidently.

"Excellent. The new packet is in the front drawer of my desk." Markl tossed off a quick thanks to his master and pounded up the stairs. Howl was about to turn away from the door when something caught his eye. He squinted into the sunset. "Sophie? Have I gone mad or is there a scarecrow helping you string up the wash line?"

Kairi rose from her place and felt herself smile faintly. "He's very helpful, whoever he is. He guided Sophie to the Castle, or rather the other way around."

Howl stepped up to the banks of the lake to regard the scarecrow. "Must have escaped from someone's vegetable patch. Can't say I blame him—must have been deathly dull with no one but the birds for company." He looked out over Sophie's head to address it. "You'll have to stay out here for the move. I don't think you'll fit under the roof."

-ooo-

The trio were expecting more in the way of pomp and show for the moving spell, but all it required was several sacks of salt, a piece of schoolroom chalk, and a lot of painstaking measurements. Howl firmly rebuffed Sora's offer to help, so he, Riku, and Kairi gracefully escaped to the meadow a few ridges beyond the house while Sophie puttered around the kitchen bullying Calcifer into cooking dinner.

The house was much too close for six people, each with their own secrets to hide, and was as smothering as the meadow was free. Many of the wildflowers were wilting and closing in the near darkness, but the fragrance hadn't faded. The three of them walked slowing across rolling hills, jumping streams and rocky outcroppings, until they reach the shore of another lake and the tiny cottage perched on the banks. The door was unlocked, but it smelled dusty and disused, and Sora instead sat down on the stone porch with his legs dangling over the edge above the water. Kairi and Riku joined him.

"It think," Sora said, reticently, "that we ended up on the wrong side." He held out his hand and summoned his Keyblade. The action was as effortless as breathing, but its familiar weight and indisputable power were less comforting in his hand than they'd ever been. "Things always turned out, somehow, before we came here. It wasn't hard to figure out who I was supposed to use this on." He set it down across his legs and traced the warm curves and angles with his other hand. It was a peculiarity of Keyblades, that they lacked steel's characteristic chill against the skin, like a living thing; sometimes it felt as though they were, since they did, after all, chose their own masters and guide them in their own fickle ways to victory. Except, it seemed, this time. Sora released it and watched the reflection of the light flare and die in the pond below.

"Well I don't think there _is_ a right side," Riku announced. "Just two sides that are wrong in different yet equally creative ways. According to Howl the Strangians are firebombing the whole damn coast, even places that haven't _got _any strategic importance besides being full of innocent people, and Ingary's turning the Heartless loose on them in return. Sure, you get to pick the flavor, but they both taste like shit when you take a bite."

He tilted his head low to look at Kairi, who was gazing into the deepening violet of the sky. She leaned forward, squinted at the darkness, and smiled. "First one. Make a wish."

"Wishing away your problems doesn't work," he replied impatiently. "Not on stars, dandelions, birthday candles, or even magic lamps. If you want something fixed you've got to do it yourself."

"I wasn't. And by the way, you're both wrong, you know," Kairi said calmly. "By assuming there's only a 'good' and a 'bad'." She paused to breathe deep of the perfumed air, the rich muddiness of the lake, and the peace of this place. "The King of Strangia lost his only son. If his soothsayers are right, and he _is _somewhere in Ingary, what would you do in his place? Riku…I know you and your dad didn't always get along, but he took it so hard when you disappeared, even after Naminé messed with everybody's heads. We ended up talking a lot that year, since we both knew in our hearts you had gone for some terrible reason but couldn't quite catch hold of why. If he'd known what happened to you, I have no doubt he would've dove into the Darkness himself to try to bring you back.

"And if Howl was right, and no one from Ingary knowingly kidnapped him, how far is too far for Madame Suliman to go to defend her homeland from an invasion, since her enemy is so overpoweringly strong? She kept her heart intact for _thirteen years_ controlling the Heartless. Can you imagine that? Thirteen years when Xehanort barely lasted one. She may have gotten scared and desperate now, I'll admit, but she can't be an evil woman."

"Why are you defending her?" Riku snapped. "You just told us she almost spit you like a fucking marshmallow on campfire night!"

"I think she was aiming for Howl," Kairi replied.

"That is incredibly not the point."

"If you're going to propose we kill her, don't," Kairi said, suddenly fierce. "She isn't Malificent. She's a human being, and I will not ever, _ever _go along with a plan that involves wiping someone out because we don't agree with her politics unless there is _no_ other way."

Sora groaned. "You're right. I didn't think about it that way before, but you're right. We _have_ to find Prince Stephen. That's the only way out without making a decision I don't…I don't think is ours to make. We protect people from the Heartless. Not from each other." He chewed on his lip, thinking for a moment. "There's a ton we don't know about Keyblades and Keyblade Masters and everything—but I have this feeling that if we start choosing one people over another, trying to push and shove things the way we want, we end up on the wrong road."

"_Some say the Keyblade master saved the world, while others said he wrought chaos and destruction upon it_," Kairi quoted. "That's what I mean. We can't become that. We're _better _than that."

"That's nice," Riku said. "It really is. And if I happened to agree and we could make both sides see how fatally dumb they're being without spilling a drop of blood I'd be right there with you. But we _don't have time_. There's been hunters out searching for this Prince for more than a year. How are we supposed to find him before the Heartless torch this place?"

"It's not hopeless," Sora said stubbornly. "If he hasn't come back by now someone or something is stopping him. We take it down, or bust him out, or unenchant him, or whatever it is. Kairi's got a knack for seeing who people really are. That's got to help."

"I guess," Riku said, without conviction. "But you rely too much on luck, and mine sort of _sucks_. He could be anywhere on this whole planet. What chance do we have of actually finding the guy?"

"You're so pessimistic sometimes, Riku," Sora said, although he couldn't answer the question.

"I'm not a pessimist. I'm a realist. The universe isn't an amusement park," he said. He looked over at Sora and raised a hand to slap him on the side of the head.

"Augh! Riku! What was that…oh," he said, when Riku showed him the now flattened mosquito before rubbing his fingers clean on the stone.

Beside him Kairi twitched, looked down, and whacked the bare triangle of her collarbone with the heel of her hand. "Want to head in? They think I'm dinner too."

Sora got up and stretched. "Okay. Tomorrow we start looking for Prince Stephen for real. Madame Suliman's agents know what Kairi and I look like, but they've never seen you, Riku. That's something," and didn't add, 'I hope it's enough.'

-ooo-

It was the scent of simmering soup and baking biscuits carried on the wind that led Sora, Riku, and Kairi back to the castle, under the light of the rising moon. It was a homey, comforting kind of smell, and did a great deal to chase away the disappointments and horrors of the day. They were all rather surprised to find they were looking forward to dinner when they crested the hill on which the castle was resting. Markl yelped and leapt up from what he was doing when he saw them making for the door, to bring them a lantern and make _extremely _sure nobody smudged his and Howl's magical preparations by accident. With utmost care they had measured a perfect circle of salt big enough to contain the body of the castle, slashed with straight and curved lines at seemingly random points around the circumference. Howl had rested the boxy salt spreader against a boulder and was eating a small bowl of soup under Sophie's watchful eye. Despite being a grown man, he had the same sort of look on his face one might find on a five-year-old whose mother had presented him with a plate of steamed broccoli.

"Help yourself," Sophie said to them. "There's lots. Biscuits are on a plate under the tea towel."

Markl giggled when he saw the skeptical look on Riku's face and fetched his bowl from where he'd left it on the grass. "Sophie's a good cook. Don't mind Master Howl—he hardly eats anything. Me? I'm going for seconds. I'll bring you some."

He ran into the house and came back with a tray, four bowls, some spoons, and a small mound of biscuits, which had been only slightly sloshed on. Markl divied up the content of the tray, and Sora, Riku and Kairi had their tastes and decided the youngest member of their odd little group was spot-on about Sophie's cooking. They took up places in the grass beside Sophie and Turnip Head (which Sophie had christened the scarecrow in absence of a proper name), to eat and watch the last of the preparations.

Calcifer carefully sidled the castle over until it was directly over the center of the circle, and Howl shooed everyone (save Turnip Head, who was too tall to fit in the door) inside for the completion of the ritual. The second step took him all of five minutes and involved scrawling an identical circle symbol on the floorboards with a piece of chalk. He rose and inspected his work, hands on his hips. "Nearly done. You all might want to get on the table or desk for this. Or at least stay away from the walls."

Sophie tsk-tsked about that, but acquiesced, provided everyone took off their shoes first. Howl delicately worked Calcifer free from the hearth with a dustpan, who clearly would have been sweating had he possessed skin. "Be gentle with me. Please?" he pleaded. Howl only laughed and stepped into the chalk circle. He raised his left arm and inhaled deeply. The room filled with a sensation of expectation and power, so thick it made Kairi and Riku's hair stand on end, and would have done the same to Sora's if it wasn't already there by default.

With a loud pop, a green couch appeared to Howl's right and banged against the floor, followed by new tables complete with vases of flowers, a cabinet, and a coat rack. Two pretty picture windows puffed out like soap bubbles on either side of the front door. The old wallpaper stripped itself from the plaster, and the walls themselves stretched like putty around the much large kitchen and dining room. There were muffled bangs behind them as new bedrooms and bathrooms sprang into being on the first and second floors. After a few seconds Howl put a stop to the lighting redecorating, and he drifted slowly back to the floor and calmly replaced Calcifer in the fire grate, which was the only part of the house that hadn't changed at all.

Riku slipped off of the desk, where he'd been perched with his legs tucked under him. "I have to say…_that_ was impressive." He—and just about everyone else with hands in Radiant Garden—spent a good portion of their time doing that sort of thing the mundane way, with a lot of time, sweat, and paint rollers.

Markl leapt off the table and jogged a quick circuit around he room, giggling delightedly the whole way. "This is great Master Howl, it's so _big_!**" ** he said, and zoomed through their front door into the courtyard that had sprouted there.

"I added on a room for Sophie…and a guest room," Howl said. "Come look." He turned and saw Sophie wasn't behind him. She gasped under her breath and slipped off of the table as if in a daze, crossing over to the window that opened onto a view of the railroad tracks. She ran her fingers up and down the wood grain of the windowframe, tasting its familiarity. "Sophie?" he asked quizzically.

"It's fine, Howl. I like it just fine," she lied through her smile.

Howl didn't notice. "I got you some clothes, too, but you can open them later." He took her by the hand and led her to the front door. "There's a new color on the dial, too. See?" He pushed open the door and the breeze that swept in kissed the dusty air with the scent of thousands of wildflowers.

"That's amazing!" Sora said, who had the best vantage point of the meadow. The profusion of flowers was breathtaking, and under the sunlight it would have been almost too beautiful to be real. He was about to follow them when Kairi dashed across the room and grabbed him by the sleeve before he could pass the threshold.

"Wait," she said quietly into his ear. "Let them have some time alone."

"Time alone?" Riku said from across the room. "You said that in the same way _we_ need time alone. Which is _gross."_

Kairi shut the door and sat down on the newly arrived couch. Calcifer was watching her expectantly, as if he were very, very interested in how she meant to explain herself. "Sophie isn't what she seems. For that matter, neither is Howl. Or _you, _Calcifer_._ I don't think she's much older than we are, if even. And Howl is…that, I haven't figured out yet."

"Gold star stamp for Kairi, if I had one," Calcifer said. "She was cursed by someone very powerful and _really _petty."

"Cursed? Oh. Ohhhhh…" Kairi breathed. "Poor Sophie."

"No kidding," Calcifer said, "and not to mention poor Howl and _especially _poor me."

"That's not what I meant," she answered, shaking her head. "Why didn't I see this before? I think I know who did it to her—this horrible old bag Sophie and I met on the way into the palace." Sora's eyebrows pinched themselves together. Kairi was charitable about others almost to a fault, and if her first impression was that bleak, the old witch must have been nasty to puppy-kicking proportions. "The Witch of the Waste," she said. "Sophie was absolutely furious at her and I couldn't figure out why."

Calcifer sucked in a breath and shuddered. "That'd be in character for her. You know where Howl got the idea to spread rumors he devours maiden hearts? _Her_. She goes after the opposite side. Tried to get her paws on Howl once, but he's a slippery bastard when he wants to be. Others weren't quite so lucky. She turned any boy that she overcame into one of her Heartless slaves, and anyone who ticked her off, man or woman, she cursed in all sorts of creative ways."

Kairi made a disgusted noise. "Having your heart torn out isn't a fate I'd wish on anyone, but she comes very close. And that's exactly what I think happened to her. The only reason she got a palace invitation was so Madame Suliman could use her to make an extra-dangerous Heartless."

"What a shocking twist," Riku said, deadpan. "I had my money on a nice civil tea. Maybe with scones."

Kairi nodded. "I know, I know. But Sophie's curse is still in effect…it wasn't broken when the caster died, so I'm not sure how much more we can do to help her. Howl, though…" she said, and paused, drawing her knees up on the cushions. Calcifer leaned forward over the logs, hanging on her every word. "He's _not_ a Nobody. I know that much. He has a heart around here somewhere, because he almost lost it to Darkness back at the palace."

"You mean like what Ansem's Heartless did to Malificent?" Sora asked, cringing in sympathy for the absent Howl.

"Sort of. But he didn't want it like she did. He fought it like mad. For a little while he turned into this huge bird…sort of a cross between a hawk and a crow, 'til Sophie screamed and broke Madame Suliman's spell." She turned around to look at Riku with her wide and pleading blue eyes. "You've been there, Riku. You could help him."

Riku turned away from her gaze, unable to meet it straight on. "Just because I've overcome my desire to wipe that lovesick smile off his face with my fist doesn't mean we're buddies now."

"I'm not asking you to do it for me. This world needs him, maybe as much as it needs _us_, to survive this. Please, just consider it. He seems so alone here—he chose to turn against his old life, his master, his future…everything. He was_ there_ when the Heartless overran the research facility and couldn't save a soul, and for his efforts everyone he's ever known except Markl and Sophie think he's a coward and a traitor."

Riku growled inwardly. Kairi had an expert touch at appealing to his better nature. It made holding a nice grudge nearly impossible. He was about to respond when the doorknob rattled and Markl came bounding up the steps in excellent spirits.

"We've got a new hat shop and they left all their stuff here! Come on, Sora, I wanna see what you look…" he said, but trailed off when he noticed the conversation stopped abruptly when he entered, and the somber looks on their faces wasn't lost on him either.

Sora crushed his concern firmly down beneath a wide smile and got up. He put a hand behind Markl's back and steered him back in the direction from which he'd come. "Did you find a nice Sunday bonnet for me?"

Markl giggled. "I was gonna say tophat, but whatever you want."

But before they'd made it to the welcome mat laid in front of the stairs, the door banged open so hard it dented the banister, and through it came Sophie, quite literally flying up the staircase. She tumbled onto the rug and into Markl, who hadn't had quite enough time to dive aside. The door slammed behind her, locked itself, and the dial clicked off of the new yellow section that lead to the flower meadow into the one marking the Waste outside Market Chipping. Kairi gasped, shot to her feet, and rushed over to where she was sprawled, sure the poor woman had broken something, but Sophie groaned in annoyance rather than pain and sat up without assistance. Markl peeled himself up off the floor, rubbing the back of his head and grumbling loudly.

"Are you okay? What the heck was that about?" Sora asked, kneeling down next to her.

Sophie shook out the arm she'd rolled over and nodded. "Yes, yes. Howl was showing me his…my new cottage out in the meadow. We spotted a battleship in the sky, don't know whose it was, if that even matters. He waved his arm around a little and broke the wings somehow. They didn't like that at _all_, and sent a swarm of flying creatures out after him. He sprouted wings and tossed me in here." Sophie sighed gustily, something she had been doing rather often, lately, and whispered, "I hope he's all right."

Markl made a face. "Yikes." He crawled over next to her and took hold of her thumb with soft hands that had only just lost their little-boy plumpness. "Don't worry too much, okay, Sophie? He's done this before. He takes off sometimes for hours or even days, but he always comes back."

Sophie looked slightly more relaxed, but only slightly. "That's good to know, Markl. Thank you." With Sora's help she worked her way to her feet and shook off her skirts.

"Are you _sure_ you're okay?" Kairi persisted, unsure if her elderly bones were as resilient as she claimed. "I'm a more than decent healer."

"I won't need it, I don't think. I'm tougher than I look, but I think I've had enough excitement for today, so if you'll excuse me…" Sophie answered, brushing off the looks of concern. "Doing the mending has never looked better," she muttered to herself, and hefted the basket of clothes in the corner and the sewing kit atop it. With her eyes fixed purposely on the floor, she disappeared into the room that Howl had given her. It was piled high with packages tied in ribbon, which she ignored, and she kicked the door shut behind her.

Sora cleared his throat. "You came in here for a reason, didn't you, Markl?" he asked. Let's see what we've got in the shop." He stepped down the stairs and rotated the knob until he found the one that opened into the courtyard. Markl followed after him, subdued; his original goal of forcing Sora to put on a succession of stupid hats seemed suddenly less entertaining. The passage between the two halves of the building was a small square between the shopfront and the living area of the house, with an overhanging roof around the perimeter and a generous carpet of weeds sprouting from between the bricks. The shop was also rather small, and uncleared. Whoever had left it had left in a hurry. There was a scattering of paper over the floor and counters, and most of the merchandise was still perched on their hooks or the mannequin's smooth beige heads. Markl had lit a few of the gas lamps to illuminate the room. The flickering light cast almost ghoulish shadows of the flowered and feathered bonnets.

Sora plucked a black bowler from a nearby hook and fixed it on his head. He pushed himself up on the counter next to the cash register and inspected his new look in the hand mirror he found on it.

Markl snort behind his hand. "I don't think that one's 'you'." He jumped up and wiggled onto the counter after Sora, and perched there with his chin tight against his knees. His smile faded after a second, and was replaced with a look of concern that seemed much too mature for his round face. Sora removed his new headgear and tossed it aside. It didn't fit with the tone of the conversation he sensed on the horizon.

"Where does he go?" Sora asked. Markl looked back at him, and curled up tighter, like a snail pulling into its shell.

"He wouldn't ever tell me," Markl whispered, so his voice wouldn't carry, as if he were afraid someone else might hear through the thick walls. "I know I'm 'just a kid', but I'm not dumb. I can put two and two together.

"Sometimes he went through the black door. When he came back he was always dusty and he'd disappear into his bedroom for hours, and be snappy for days afterward. He carried piles and piles of equipment out there—really rare, expensive stuff, for spells I don't even know the names for. It got worse the more often he went, and finally he stopped. Since the war started he's been going into the Waste more and more often. When he comes back from that he always smells awful, like factory smoke, 'cause it gets into his hair and clothes and everything, and he's so tired he collapses right into bed when he gets home.

"Before Sophie came I had to look after him. I'd find crow feathers all over the house afterward. And once…once I think there was blood. Sora…" he started, and his voice cracked under the pressure of unshed tears. He swallowed against the finality of giving his fear a voice. "I lied to Sophie. I'm afraid one day he's going to leave and not come back." He sat up suddenly, and sniffled. "Mmm…sorry," he mumbled, scrubbing his face with hands. "Wizards don't cry. _Wizards don't._"

Sora inched over on the counter and cupped his chin in his hand, curling his body over his knees so his face was even with Markl's. "Says who? Especially if they have a good reason?"

Markl unfolded and refolded himself, then paused, chewing on a thumbnail in thought. "Says everybody. Crying about something means you care about it. And you can't let people know you care too much, because they can use it against you—especially other wizards."

Sora cocked his head quizzically at that declaration. He supposed, in a way, it was true—the Organization had tried to use Kairi against him, and Malificent had done more or less the same thing to Riku, albeit for a different end. In another way, it was the dumbest thing he'd ever heard, because if that love _wasn't_ there, it wouldn't have given them both the courage to set Kairi's heart and the world right again. He felt a sudden pang of pity for anyone who felt the need to live their life without caring, and put his hand on Markl's far shoulder a jiggled him a little. "Just because 'everybody' says something doesn't mean it's right. If you aren't allowed to keep people close to you that you care about, what good is your magic? Would you use it only for yourself?" Markl thought for a moment and shook his head no. "Good. Cause that's a dangerous thing to do. It twists you up inside. I know sorcerers that did—they had so much power, but all they wanted from it was _more _power, and no matter how much they drank down it was never enough. I don't think you're like that. And neither is your Master."

"You really think so?" Markl asked.

"Of course I do. I don't say things I don't mean."

"I…know," Markl said quietly. "I guess I always sort of knew that. Figures—he's really bad at taking his own advice. He does dumb stuff sometimes, and forgets his appointments 'cause he's always off chasing some new girl every week…but he's still a good master. My parents gave me to him 'cause they didn't know what to do about a kid with such strong magic he levitated his bed when he was sleeping." Markl smiled wryly, another expression too jaded to be at home on his full child's cheeks. "They disappeared after, but he never tried giving me away. I always have enough to eat, as long as I don't mind it being cold, and he's never caned me, not even after I accidentally scorched his eyebrows off. Him and Calcifer taught me a lot. I can do some spells almost as good as some grownup wizards already."

"I thought so," Sora said triumphantly. "He does care about you, and Sophie too. Me? I have a hard job to do, and I can't just give up, no matter if I'm tired or sad or hurt or whatever. It's because of the people I care about that I can keep going. I think your Master Howl is the same way. He goes out to do what he does for you and Sophie; he doesn't want you to see what war is like."

"But I don't want _him_ to be out there either!" Markl said, clenching his small hands in frustration. "What if he gets hurt really bad and can't get back?"

Sora wished he could give Markl the guarantee that his odd patchwork family would never be torn apart, but he couldn't. It was the nature of war—promises were broken and pledges left unfulfilled. Markl much too savvy a nine-year-old for any soothing lie Sora could tell to go unchallenged. Instead, he said, as a compromise: "Me and Kairi and Riku are going to do everything we can to end the war, so Howl won't have to go out there anymore, okay? So _no one_ will have to fight the Heartless anymore, on any world, anywhere."

"Thanks, Sora. But how're you going to do that? There's so many—and there's just three of you."

"We'll find a way," he said. "We always find a way."


	12. Chapter 12

Between Madame Suliman's Heartless and their complete lack of information leading to the recovery of Prince Stephen, they were trapped. Another day passed, with the sunset bringing more Heartless winging into Market Chipping, drunk with the concentration of strong hearts in the sturdy house but unable to reach them. They gnawed on gables, burrowed into the foundation, and threw themselves at the windows, but Calcifer's spells of concealment held and they couldn't find their way inside. They appeared only after dark, perhaps compelled by their mistress to hide their presence from the townspeople, but nevertheless Riku felt obligated to escort Sophie to and from the market on her grocery shopping trips. He didn't think for a moment Madame Suliman's agents were above using her as a line to reel them in, or do the same to Howl, who hadn't yet returned.

Riku found sketches of Sora and Kairi had appeared on lampposts with 'WANTED-CASH REWARD" emblazoned in bold letters beneath their portraits. The likenesses were poorly done; their faces looked older and leaner, and their blue eyes flat and dark with malice, but they were recognizable. Market Chipping wasn't a large town. Riku forbid the two of them to wander outside and avoided anyone he thought he recognized from their first day on the world.

The air had gained a palpable edge of panic to it. Soldiers had begun to trickle back into town, not the freshfaced boys bursting with patriotic fervor but the hollow, harrowing men of the secret police. The people, in turn, began to trickle out. The streets filled with carts piled high with anything families couldn't bear to part with, taking their chances in the farmlands at the very edges of civilization, almost within the boundaries of the Waste. Market Chipping was slowly bleeding to death by every road out of town. Madame Suliman's human agents supervised the evacuation and tried not to appear as if they were looking for something.

The atmosphere in the house was as thick and stuffy as it was outside. Calcifer and Sophie were short with each other, Sora and Kairi were short with each other, and Riku was short with everyone. Markl spent most of his time not sleeping or eating carefully avoiding the house.

Sophie watched it all from beneath the brim of her hat and refused the well-meaning entreaties from the townsfolk to get out before it was too late. A bubbly young woman of seventeen or so, with piles of blonde curls and full lips done up ripe-apple red, pounced on her nearly in tears one morning at the bakery. She claimed to be Sophie's sister, but even allowing for the weight of the curse there wasn't much family resemblance. Sophie hugged her, wished her well, and politely refused her tearful pleas to leave together.

In between playing escort Riku kept to the town itself, sifting through gossip and hearsay and piles of old newspapers in the town's library, hoping for a flash of insight, some miniscule clue the other hunters had missed. The librarian seemed perturbed by his intense interest in the topic of Prince Stephen, odd hair, and foreign mannerisms. When he spotted her conversing in clipped tones with one of the local sherrifs, he put a hasty stop to the fruitless research.

Kairi and Sora had spent a good portion of the days hiking through the Waste loaded down with as many luck charms as Markl could pull out of every nook and cranny of the house. Even with their luck, they found no clues, no sign, not even the barest whisper of the Prince and his party. There were tens of thousands of square miles to comb through, of beautiful but rugged forest, bare stone peaks, and snowdrifts that clung tenaciously to the mountainsides well into summer. The Heartless that had been let loose when the Witch of the Waste lost her heart to Madame Suliman's scheming thronged in the wilderness, masterless and unrestrained in their hunger. Concentrating on the search was impossible when Sora and Kairi's hearts shone like beacon fires to every Heartless within fifty miles. They returned every night looking more battered and less hopeful with every day that passed.

Even Sora's relentless optimism was being chipped away in coarse flecks by the knowledge their search may have been doomed from the beginning. The Strangian diviners could have been mistaken, in denial, or simply lying to provide their king with a convenient excuse to invade his neighbors. Their definition of 'alive' was also troublesome, since Prince Stephen may have fallen victim to the thousands of Heartless prowling the wilderness, and his heart was now cloaked in an inhuman skin that was very much alive but lost beyond his father's reach forever.

-ooo-

On the third day after the confrontation in the palace, Sora and Kairi returned early from their hunt in the Waste, without explanation. They quietly disappeared to spend the remainder of the day helping Markl box up the junk still left in the storefront, as a way to keep their hands and minds occupied and crowd out the sting of failure. Riku had declined their invitation to join in, and was sprawled on the couch watching the top of Calicifer's head dance over the logs as he slept. It was driving him slowly insane, being trapped here on a pea-green couch in a small town when he didn't know how long the world had, but he had no leads and a very canny sorceress on his trail. Riku formulated plan after plan, but all he could come up with he filed under "damn stupid", "would take more time than they've got", or "requires Radiant Garden Self-Defense Force members be both available and armed with flamethrowers", and discarded all of them.

The clock struck four in sonorous tones, and a distant, constant wailing began beneath the sound. "What's that noise?" Sophie asked from her place at the table. Her question didn't sound directed at anyone in particular, although Riku was the only one in the room likely to answer.

Riku sat up and turned around so he could rest his forearms on the sofa back. He'd heard a similar sound before, a distant mechanical cry, back on the Islands. His sleepy hometown had been at peace for fifty years, and the local fire department only used the sirens for tsunami warnings. _This_ time they were undoubtedly being put to their original use, however. "Air raid siren, I think," he answered, glancing quickly out the darkening window.

Sophie curled up her knitting tighter in her gnarled hands. "I thought it would be louder."

"Sounds pretty far off. I don't think we're in trouble yet. If we were, you'd _know,_" Riku said.

Sophie snorted. "I can't speak for you, but I've been in trouble since the Witch of the Waste…since we met. That's where this all started." She flexed the fingers of one hand, exploring the knots and ridges with her fingertips. "Do you ever feel like the body you've got isn't your own anymore?" Sophie mused, half to herself. It was an invitation for commiseration, and something more.

"Actually…yes. I know _exactly_ what you mean," Riku said. "Nobody recognizes you, looking in a mirror is unbelievably creepy, and you keep banging your head on things because your legs are a different length than you're used to. Annoying as he—heck," he covered quickly, when Sophie glared. He'd gotten long out of the habit of watching his language, but Sophie reminded him strongly of maternal grandmother who had no reservations about giving her grandchildren a hearty smack when she caught them cussing. He was about twice as tall as he was then and she long since passed away, but it was a reflexive action.

"You do?" she asked, pleased by his unexpected display of manners. "What did you do? Annoy a witch?"

"Not quite. I listened to one, which is even worse. Sora left that part out while he was reciting the recent history of Radiant Garden. He was being charitable. It wasn't my proudest moment."

Sophie put aside her knitting, which didn't seem to be progressing much at all for all the time she spent staring at the embryonic scarf. "What happened to you?"

"I could ask the same of you, although I gather you wouldn't be able to tell me."

"Mmmpphh!" she answered.

"Right. Exactly. Kairi figured it out. The Witch of the Waste cursed you with the body of a ninety year old woman instead of a nineteen year old one for pi—getting her mad." Sophie seemed to flow out into the chair with relief. "But we don't know how to break it."

"I figured as much. Calcifer said he would help me, though," she said, and glanced over at the hearth.

"In exchange for what?" Riku prodded. "He's not really the giving type."

Sophie pinched her lips between her teeth and mulled over how much truth to add to the answer, and went for all of it. "He's under a curse, too."

"He hinted at as much," Riku agreed.

"I'm not much of a witch, really," Sophie explained. "I haven't the faintest idea how to break _my_ curse, so I don't know how much use I could possibly be on his. I'm only a milliner, or I was, but he seems to think I can do whatever it is that needs to be done.

"Of all of us I think I got off the easiest. I still have all my teeth and my mind intact, and you young whippersnappers are much more polite to me than I'd wager you'd be otherwise," she said, and winked. Riku laughed, despite himself. "Madame Suliman said Howl was cursed, too, and somehow I think he's the worst off, even though he's still walking around in his own body." Sophie sighed. "I wish he wouldn't hide it from me. It can't be doing him any good."

Riku's mouth curdled on own unpleasant memories. "It's hard to show people a side of yourself you're ashamed of, even if you've known them your whole life. Part of you knows they want to help you despite everything…and another part is afraid to face them because they could just turn their backs to you after all."

"You sound an awful lot like you're speaking from experience, and you never answered me from before," Sophie said, her tone sharpening with interest. "What happened between you and this witch of yours?"

Riku didn't like dragging his mistakes back into the spotlight, but Sophie had been very kind to her houseguests, cooking for them, tidying their room, washing and mending their battlestained clothes—all without a word of complaint. Calcifer was fast asleep. Riku couldn't think of a good excuse to withhold the answer, and besides, he got the feeling she wasn't asking only out of simple curiosity. "Her name was Malificent," he admitted. "And I wanted the power to _fix_ everything. I let her teach me how to control the Heartless, because I thought it would help me find out how to wake Kairi up when her heart was stolen. Except even she didn't know that you can't control them, not really. If you stick around them long enough _they_ start controlling _you_. Darkness has a way of doing that to you. It ate Malificent alive, and almost did me in, too." He stopped, mustering the resolve to continue the confession. "I let Ansem's first Apprentice take over my body, because I was_ so sure_ I was in control of the Darkness. He was the one that pushed Radiant Garden over the edge, into oblivion.

"It took almost a year for me to fight my way back into myself. Sora and Kairi went looking for me, and I didn't want to be found. They told you I shut the door to Kingdom Hearts—saved existance as we know it and everything? That was only most of the truth. It was me giving in in the first place that gave him the opening he needed. People died because of me. I didn't want my friends to see what I'd done and what I'd become."

Sophie's hawkish features softened in sympathy, and she seemed to relax into her chair as if the hesitant monologue was, in a way, reassuring. "But you came back. If someone gives in to Darkness, they can come back?"

"Yeah," he said, "up until the very end. But the farther out you go the harder it is to find your way back to shore. I had help—a lot of help. And even then, it was the hardest thing I've ever done."

"So it isn't something that can be done alone," she said quietly, half to herself. Riku shook his head. "I see. Thank you, Riku. I ought to get started on dinner now, I suppose. Why don't you ask your friends what they might have a taste for?"


	13. Chapter 13

The sun set red that night, and after the last of the light was swallowed by the horizon the sirens began to keen again. They were close, not coming from the next town over but the firehouse off the central square. Sora, Kairi, and Riku were arguing quietly and fruitlessly in the guest room about their lack of progress, and the pointless accusations trailed off into nothing in the face of the foreboding sound. Kairi rose to check on Sophie, who was clutching a paring knife in a death grip and staring fixedly on the scrap of sky she could see through the kitchen window. Sora jogged over to the front of the house, to see the remaining few people on the street dash for cover like rabbits into their holes.

"Sora, get away from the window!" Riku said sharply, from the doorframe of the guest bedroom. Sora realized what he was doing and stepped away from the fragile glass.

Markl burst through the front door a few minutes later, puffing with exertion and fear. "They're coming! I was standing on the bridge and I could_ see_ them." He didn't bother naming 'them'. It wasn't necessary. "What are we going to do?"

"I'm not going anywhere," Sophie announced over her cutting board and a pile of peeled potatoes. "This is my home and I'm not leaving it."

Calcifer, jarred from his nap by the sirens, cleared his throat. "Tiny problem with that. As awe-inspiring as my power is, I can't protect us from everything. Trying to keep the castle together, the Heartless out, and the fire at bay would be more than I could probably handle. And if the house takes a direct hit…" he mimed being blown apart, complete with tiny detonation that sent hot embers skittering onto the floorboards. Markl wailed. Calcifer drew himself up and regarded Riku, Sora, and Kairi. "What about your ship, Oh Mighty Keyblade Masters? I _know_ you've got a ship, chock fulla lasers, I bet. Pew pew pew problem solved!"

Kairi tensed, ever reluctant to take unnecessary lives. But this time the decision had been made for them—Riku reluctantly waved the suggestion off. "It's a two or three hour walk back to the transport point, and that's not even counting dealing with whatever we might meet on the way. We probably wouldn't make—" He froze in mid-gesture as Calcifer's choice of words penetrated fully. "_How _did you know that?" he asked, interrupting himself. "This world still runs on steam power, and Radiant Garden didn't arm their ships until after the Fall. How do you even know what lasers _are_?"

Calcifer went silent. It wasn't a shamed silence, but a forced one. He wrung his thin, three-fingered hands in anticipation, flicking his eyes from face to face to face in the hopes the meager hint had finally been enough—and it was.

"You're a fallen star," Kairi said quietly, all the tiny pieces locking into place to form a flawless picture. Calcifer flared in surprise and gratitude that she'd actually done it. "The Keyblade," she said, tracing the string of evidence as she spoke. "You recognized it when Riku shoved it in your face. And that's why you agreed to help us find Sora—you knew what he was. You convinced Howl to stand up against Madame Suliman and the experiments in Darkness because you've _seen the Heartless before_. I saw my own star die when I was a little girl. I couldn't catch any of the pieces. But Howl must have saved _you_."

"You're connected somehow," Sora added, recalling the brief crack in Calcifer's concentration at the same moment Howl had almost been forced into Darkness the day of the royal audience. "If he dies or surrenders to Darkness, you go with him. You share the same heart."

"That's impossible," Riku said automatically.

"Is not," Sora countered. "People share pieces of their hearts without realizing it. I'd know that better than anybody. Maybe the rules are different if a heart doesn't belong to a person. There's a lot about this stuff we don't know. If Howl were here we could _ask _him, but…"

"He's probably not far," Markl said quietly, and swallowed painfully. "That's where he goes, when he disappears and comes back smelling like burning petrol. He was trying to stop the bombings."

"Alright. It's too late to run, and even if we did we'd be leaving Calcifer behind," Sora said. "We can ride this out if we take some of the burden off him. Where's the house weakest against the Heartless? Where would they be able to break in?"

"Front door, and the window of the master bedroom," he answered. "Especially the door."

"Then we'll take care of those. The Heartless always go for us first. We should be able to distract enough of them from beating down the door so that you can hold off the rest." From outside there was flash that lit up the room in a fleeting orange glow, and a bass rumble on its heels so deep and close it made the windows tremble.

Markl whimpered and dove into Sora's chest, his fists curled up under his chin, as if he was trying to fold himself into a package too small and insignificant for the war to reach. "Don't leave us here, Sora. Please don't," he mumbled into Sora's shirt. Sora put his arms around Markl's small shoulders and brown curls. His breath was fluttering like a wounded bird. Sora hugged him tighter.

"One of us should stay inside, as the last line of defense," Riku pointed out. "I think you've been elected."

"Kairi should—" Sora began.

"Be able to decide for herself," she finished for him. Her voice was like steel. "There's going to be mobs of Shadows, and I can deal with numbers better than you can."

Sora reluctantly peeled Markl from his chest and crossed over to Kairi. He took her hand in his; it was much smaller, and her fingers narrower and more delicate, but it was just as battleworn and just as strong. He embraced her briefly, tight enough to squeeze some of her breath out in a heavy sigh, and before they parted she pressed a quick kiss over his lips. "Be careful," he said. "Please."

Another cloud of fire bloomed in the windows. Riku summoned his Keyblade. "We'll come back," he told Sora. "We _will."_

-ooo-

The door shut heavily behind Riku and Kairi, and the lock clicked into place. Sora stayed by the banisters, still and silent, until Markl took his arm and pulled him to the couch, which was as far as it was possible to get from the windows. The boy wedged himself into the corner of the cushions, and burrowed under Sora's arm and against his side. Sora let him, since a comforting presence and a calm smile was realistically all he could offer Markl at this point. Sora felt more useless than he had in years. Against bombs he was as defenseless as anyone else trapped on the ground. His Keyblade couldn't protect Markl, Sophie, Kairi, Riku, or even himself.

Sophie had been very quiet since the second siren sounded. It was a contemplative kind of silence. If she was afraid she hid it well. After a few minutes, she rose from her seat in the kitchen and dusted off her apron. She walked up to Calcifer and crossed her arms over her chest. "Even if we make it through the night, will Howl?"

Calcifer flickered uncomfortably and fixed his eyes on a speck on the hearth. "No. Probably not."

"Then if I'm going to help you both, I have to do it now." She knelt down on the floor so she could look Calcifer in his wavering eyes. "_Please_, tell me everything you can that might help."

"I'm sorry, Sophie. Madame Suliman taught him too well—you know he tied me up too tight in the curse of silence."

"That _idiot_!" she spat suddenly, in a young woman's voice, and the age lines pinching her face released it. "I don't care if he thinks the Heartless are his burden and the Darkness is his curse. He'll damn you both out of his stupid pride!"

Sora sat up a little straighter. There was still a problem left to untangle, and this one he might be able to do something about. "What can you say, Calcifer? Since I already know you're a star, could you tell us how you got to this world? Anything could help."

Calcifer tried abortively to explain himself a few times until he found words the curse permitted. "It was a long time ago. I don't remember how long. Time like you humans think of it doesn't mean much to a star. The people that lived on the worlds around me we born and died, going around and around and around in the circle of things. There was peace for a long time. Then the Heartless came. The circle broke. I didn't know what they were at first, except that they bit off little pieces of me—the hearts of my people didn't circle back like they should have. Then more pieces didn't come back, then more and more. I was life itself—I couldn't end for good, or so I thought at first. After I while I realized what was happening, and…I was scared.

"Then the Keyblade Master came, in her ship. But she was just one girl, and all by herself. She tried leading what was left of my people against the Heartless but there were too many for her. She tried going back for help but her ship was overrun. Nobody came looking for her, or to help her. After she died the Heartless almost ate me alive. All this?" he said, and gestured to his flickering body. "Wasn't all I was. There was so much more of me then. I…we broke apart as we fell, a splinter here and a sliver there. We landed on this world, all least the ones that didn't burn away in the air. Most of the pieces were so weak…pffft!…out like candles when they hit. But Howl caught me when he was a boy. We made a deal," he finished, looking shocked he got that much out, and strangely unhappy he'd succeeded.

"You could tell us that much. That's good, right?" Sora asked. "Come on, keep trying."

"No. It isn't," he explained quietly. "I shouldn't have been able to say that. If the binding curse is weakening it means his will is weakening too."

Sora sighed despondently, but the faint hope Calcifer's speech had kindled on Sophie's face wasn't extinguished. She folded her arms over the lip of the hearth, all of her attention fixed on the fire. "I won't give up on him, Calcifer. Keep talking."

-ooo-

Kairi swung again and split the Heartless into two neat halves. The smoke was choking, and stung her eyes until they watered, leaving two meandering tear tracks through the soot on her face. Madame Suliman's orders hadn't held her servants in check in the face of so much terror to feast upon, and the injured in the ruins of their houses were easy prey for their teeth and claws. Their numbers had increased exponentially in the last hour, and the newly birthed Heartless weren't bound to any master. The courtyard was swarming, and so was the air, for many of the Heartless had discovered the trick of sprouting gossamer wings from their lumpy backs and taking to the sky.

Kairi was balanced on the roof overhanging the courtyard and swatting madly at anything that so much as glanced at the second-floor window. Riku was on the ground doing the same for the inner door. Like Sora had predicted, the beasts hardly cared about battering their way inside when the most succulent hearts were out in the open. Their enemies were numerous but weak, and both Kairi and Riku were holding their ground, at least for now. They'd fallen into their own patterns with the tides of the Heartless—push forward, draw back, push forward again, and swallow a quick mouthful from one of the bottles in their pockets when one of the beasts got especially lucky. Once or twice Kairi thought she caught sight of great black wings in the sky above her head, but there were too many Heartless hovering around her to stop and look more closely.

No matter how many they killed, more came sweeping in to replace the ones that had fallen to their blades, and the barrage of flame from above wasn't letting up either. The latest surge of Heartless rose in a cloud from the ruins of a church and made for her. She cut down a few, then a few more. The braver (or hungrier) ones clawed at her exposed skin, drawing a few streaks of blood from her tiring arms, which she ignored. All in all, she felt, they were doing better than she'd expected.

But their bodies hung so thick around her and their wordless chattering pressed so close on her ears that she didn't hear the scream of engines above her head, and she didn't see the last of its payload fall until the black cloud of Heartless parted with the radiance of several million pounds of explosive force. The explosion shredded their ranks, and they were, ironically, what kept the shattered glass and timber from the townhouse from shredding Kairi, too. She was swept from the roof of the shop and into the wall of the house's second story, tumbled off the narrow overhang, and fell to the courtyard below, cushioned by the gelatinous, squirming bodies pressed against her. They hit the ground together, dazed by the concussion. But there was no time for shock, or to acknowledge the pinch of the shrapnel or the pain that was blossoming in her knees and ankles. Lightning burst forth from her head with a spell spoken so often it was almost a reflex, and a crown of killing white vines dissolved the Heartless that had begun to flutter unsteadily up again.

Riku glanced over at her, concerned for a moment, until he saw her spell light up the yard. "Hey, those were mine!" Riku yelled over the chatter.

Kairi didn't answer. She didn't answer because she had looked down and discovered a crimson flower unfolding its petals across her shirt, and thereafter made a second discovery, which was how much five inches of broken window pane hurts when it's been thrust into your side. The wave of unbearable pain melted her attempts to rise, and the feeling of hot blood spreading across her shirt sealed her lips. The ground pitched up and hit her in the side of the face. The ruddy light of the fires that illuminated the scene flickered and faded, to be replaced by a field of brilliant starbursts only she could see. The only thing that detracted from the beauty of the vision was a woman's voice moaning in the background that she only belatedly and distantly recognized as her own.

The private sky behind her eyelids was beckoning to her. It was dark, but not frightening, like the comfort of a soft and familiar bed before the dawn broke. She could wrap herself in it, if she chose, beyond pain and beyond care. She struggled vainly against the velvet weight of unconsciousness, but her weakening body wouldn't acknowledge her and slipped down further. This was it, she saw. The day she could finally learn what Kingdom Hearts looked like from the inside.

The last scene.

Fade to black.


	14. Chapter 14

Before he saw Kairi collapse onto the brick with the red stains on her shirt, Riku thought he knew what desperation felt like.

He was wrong. It was an erupting volcano; it was unstoppable, fiery power that shot renewed strength through his arms and legs. It burned so hot and so strong he didn't feel the icy touch of the claws that raked his skin or the teeth that snapped at his face as he cut swathes through the swathes of Heartless between him and Kairi. The courtyard clear, at least for now, he pulled her over on her back. Her breathing was shallow and unsteady, but still, it continued. His stock of potions was drained dry, so he dug frantically into her pockets for the little bottle she always kept there, for emergencies.

Its cap was bent from the impact of her body against the wall, and the contents were soaking uselessly into the fabric. He snarled through clenched teeth and threw it against the bricks. Above him, the air filled with a malevolent hissing, and the shadows of many heavy bodies flickered across the courtyard. The respite he had won with the rush of desperate power was spent. More Heartless folded their wings and dropped into the courtyard—three, six, nine…too many, all between him and the door. He would not be able to carry her to the relative safety of the house and cut himself a path.

"Sora!" he screamed. "Sora, I need your help!"

No one answered over the roar of propellers overhead and the screams and the collapsing timbers. Riku planted himself between Kairi and the Heartless and swung at any that summoned the courage to venture closer, calling Sora's name with whatever scraps of breath he had to spare. He could barely see past the press of black bodies thronging thick as flies—flies on dead meat.

After an eternity of waiting, he was answered. There was a small explosion from the door, and the Heartless scratching against it went flying, pudgy bodies ablaze with sorcerous fire. Sora easily cut himself a path through the Heartless, his strength fresh and undulled. He was not a graceful fighter. His strokes were flailing, and looked almost sloppy until you realized almost every one was connecting. He never stood his ground because he was hardly ever in contact with it. He leapt from one snarling beast to another with the effortless agility of a wildcat, silencing them with a quick stroke or two and moving on to the next before the first had time to finish screaming.

"Get her inside!" he yelled.

The sting in Riku's eyes was less from smoke than relief, and he dismissed his Keyblade to lift Kairi to his chest. She was still alive. Sora gestured them frantically inside as another wave of bombs hit and shattered the air, and slammed the door shut behind him.

-ooo-

A concerned Markl and Sophie were hovering by the door. She grabbed him by the wrist and jerked him back to bury his face in her dress when she saw the blood. He protested, wiggling like a feral kitten in her grasp, until she finally gave up and released him. With his eyes glued to the floorboards he sped up the stairs. A door slammed.

Riku laid Kairi down on the couch and ripped open her shirt from the collar, not even bothering with the buttons, which flew off with little pops and disappeared into the cushions. There was so much blood—but all in front, none in the back. He froze with two wads fabric in his shaking hands, unable to breathe. Sora thrust his reserved bottle of elixir at him from behind the couch. "What are you waiting for? Take it!"

Riku unclenched his knuckles with tremendous effort and folded the two sides of Kairi's ruined shirt back over her chest. "That won't help," he whispered. "Whatever made that is still inside of her. I don't see it."

"Can't you just…"

"Can't I _what_?" he snapped. "If you seal it inside the wound it'll still kill her, just more slowly and painfully. And even if I did know what I was doing we don't have any surgeon's tools. They're all still in the ship!"

"Yes you do," Sophie said suddenly. "All of my tools from the hat shop are in the boxes by the door—tweezers, scissors, needles, all shapes and sizes…probably whatever you'd need. If one of you would escort me through the courtyard I can get them for you."

From the couch, Kairi moaned, and Sora was instantly by her side. "Hurts," she mouthed, and gasped as sensation came stalking back and sprung on her with teeth bared. "It _hurts_." Her voice was only a hairsbreadth away from a scream. Sora dropped to his knees and took her hand in his, and draped the other over her chest to hold her still.

"I know…I know," he whispered against her cheek, "Don't look down. Look at me—I'm with you, and I'll always be with you." Kairi clenched her teeth and her eyes shut, trying not to cry out, but couldn't hold back the tears of pain prickling at the corners of her eyes. Riku looked down at her and felt paralyzed, and also, to his utter disgust, a pinch of anger that it was Sora she was clinging to and not him.

"Riku, go!" he ordered fiercely, under his breath.

It took an act of will to shake that pang of jealousy free, but Riku did, and he went. He summoned his Keyblade again. They each had their roles to play. Being with Sora was what made pain bearable, whether it was inside or outside, because he was gentle and stubborn all at once and would never give up, or let _you_ give up, and always knew the right thing to say.

Sophie was already standing beside the door, pale but steady, with a long kitchen knife clutched in one fist. Her curse was burning away visibly now in the furnace of her determination; the Witch of the Waste had clearly underestimated the strength of the heart she had bewitched. She stood straight and slender, with only the scanty imprint of crow's feet around her eyes and her striking gray hair remaining. Riku readied an Aero to blast back anything that tried to force its way inside and dashed out after her.

-ooo-

Kairi was gripping Sora's hand so tightly her fingernails left red crescents in the back of it, but Sora didn't try to pull away, and kept his face perfectly smooth and his voice as level as he could. He didn't even know if Kairi could understand him. She'd lost the battle for silence and was crying alternately for her mother and for someone to kill her.

There was a crash like breaking glass from upstairs, and for one horrifying moment Sora was afraid the Heartless had broken through Calcifer's defenses and the bedroom window. He only started breathing again when Markl came running down the stairs with an armful of glass containers. There was a large jar of rolled bandages in one arm and some small crystal bottles in his other hand.

Afraid to look at Kairi's ashen face or the blood on her shirt, he held them out to Sora. "Here. The red phial is Master Howl's, but…I don't think he'd mind. Three drops under the tongue to hold any pain at bay," he said, as if reciting lessons to a schoolmaster. The liquid was rusty and sloshed thick as blood against the sides of the bottle. "The bandages I enchanted myself. To stop bleeding. I had to use them on Howl once after he came back through the black door. They work."

Sora worked his hands free from Kairi's grip and tore the stopper from the crystal phial and held it to her lips. She stopped thrashing almost immediately and relaxed into the cushions once she swallowed. Sora laid Howl's potion aside on the floorboards and kissed Kairi on the forehead. Her skin felt cold against his lips, and her pulse was fluttering against her neck. "How'd you feel?"

"Like ice. Better though," she whispered, and added in a dreamy voice bordering on delirium: "My head feels weird. Like I'm floating away."

"Well _don't_," Sora said fiercely, as he snapped open the lid of the other container and withdrew a handful of cotton gauze to press against the wound. "Concentrate on being here. Riku's coming back soon. Tell me what we have to do. You're the expert healer around here."

She closed her eyes, concentrating on plucking the correct instructions out of the sticky miasma that flooded her mind. "Scrub your hands to the elbow, sterilize the tools. It went under my ribs. Don't taste blood yet, 'n I can still breathe okay. Didn't hit my lung. Careful _you_ don't," she mumbled reproachfully, and lapsed into silence.

There was a rumble of thunder from outside the door. Sophie threw it open and launched herself up the stairs two at a time, with Riku on her heels. He'd nearly gotten it shut and locked when something threw itself hard against the door from the other side, growling and snapping. Riku braced himself against the stone steps and shoved. It wouldn't close. Sophie dropped the box and took a running leap back down the stairs, throwing the whole weight of her body against the thick boards. It wasn't much, but it was enough. The lock clicked home. She gasped in pain but bit it short, and flipped the dial around to the relative peace of the Waste. She shoved Riku up the stairs before he could ask if she was all right. "It'll only bruise. Look after Kairi."

The small box Sophie had dropped on the welcome mat was shut with twine and looked like she'd used it to bash one of the monster's heads in. Riku tossed it on the table, snapped the twine with a knife, and dumped out the jingling contents. True to her promise, there was an assortment of fine tools, including a long, thin pair of tweezers used for delicate finishing touches in her millinery.

"I can clean them, and make sure they're cooled afterward," Calcifer said wearily, and extended his arm to take it from Riku, who tossed it to him. He looked different, somehow. Perhaps it was Riku's imagination, but the hue of the flames blinked in and out of their normal range, snapping from briefly from orange to a deep and sickly violet. The colors mingled like old blood.

Sophie rummaged around in the drawers for a bar of the harsh laundry soap and set it down next to the sink. Sora rose to take it, but stopped next to Riku. "I'm sorry," he whispered, face white and shoulders hunch. "I'm not sure…I don't think I can do this."

Riku put his hand over Sora's shoulder. "It's okay," he answered, just as quietly, expecting this. Sora was _too_ compassionate, sometimes. He inhaled deeply. "Because _I_ can."

Sora smiled weakly and returned to his place by Kairi's side. Riku tied his hair back from his face, scrubbed down his hands to the elbow, and tried not to think about what would happen if he screwed up. But this time Riku's much-maligned luck held out. The wide shard of glass wasn't in deep, and within a few minutes he tossed it onto a rag Sophie had laid on the floor, sat back, and let himself breath again, while Sora gave Kairi a few sips of their last bottle elixir.

It mended the injury but could do nothing to restore the lost blood that was drying in a sticky mess on her and Riku's clothes. She was still too weak and dizzy to stand, much less to fight. Her limbs prickled with an unnatural chill from the strange potion Markl had given her, and it turned her thoughts to minnows flashing through the wide black pool of her mind. But with the scream of her nerves mercifully silenced, she could at least _try_ to grab hold of one or two. The pain had drowned out her other senses, the ones that ranged wider and deeper than sight, hearing, touch, taste or smell. There was something pressing down on them, subtle and deadly, that told her, without explanation, that it had been a very, very bad idea to turn their backs to the door. "Sora?" she whispered. "It's breaking through."

"What is?" he asked, uncomprehending. "I don't hear anything."

At Kairi's side Riku drew in a sharp breath, like he'd suddenly noticed a nauseating smell, and glanced over his shoulder with an expression of dread. "Oh. _Fuck,_" he said.

The doorframe was rippling like a flag in the breeze, sideslipped from reality. The wallpaper around it was buckled and loose, like the wall beneath it was slowly rotting, and a persistent scratching could be heard from the other side. Compelled by a mingling of horror and curiosity, Markl took a few steps toward it, and a whip of barbed wire, a tendril of Darkness itself, snaked out from beneath the gap and tried to strike him in the face. He shrieked and threw himself backward, avoiding it by scant inches.

Sophie shot up from her place beside the armrest of the sofa to pull him away before it tried again. "What _is_ that?" she cried, hugging Markl close and well away from its reach.

"That looks like a portal into Darkness," Riku said to the fire. "Explain. Now."

Calcifer's eyes had disappeared into the embers, and the tongues of flame licking at the wood were weak and spindly. He didn't even try to rise to address them, and his voice with thin and muffled with ash. "It was Howl's idea. You step through a paper-thin sheet of it when you open the door. It's how they're all connected—the shop, the cottage, and the castle."

"Brilliant idea, up until now," Riku said. "Now turn it _off _before it kills us all_._"

"Can't," Calcifer said heavily. "Don't know how. It's tied to Howl's will, not mine."

Riku bit back another curse. The mechanics of the spell were foreign, but the principal was not. He stroked Kairi's cheek with a gentle finger to get her attention, which was wandering near the lip of unconsciousness. "I'm sorry to ask anything more of you, but can you seal that?"

Her eyes fluttered briefly open. "No. I was trying. I'm so tired, Riku. I'm sorry."

Sophie tightened her grip on Markl's shoulders. "It seems to me the safest place is now outside this castle," Sophie said, staring through narrowed eyed at the bubbling door.

Riku turned to disagree. "The hills are completely indefensible—we'd be swarmed. And I'm not moving Kairi into that unless we absolutely have to."

"At least outside there's somewhere to run!" Sophie countered. "The time to move her is going to come and go if we don't leave _now_. Markl, come on," she said, grabbed the poker from its holder beside the hearth, and wrapped a potholder from the wall rack onto her hand. Before Riku realized what she had in mind, she dashed up to the picture windows at the front of the house and swung the poker with all her strength. The glass shattered with a horrific crash. She punched through the few jagged edges left on the bottom of the frame with the side of her fist and tossed the square of heavy rag aside.

Sora ran up to grab the welcome mat and toss it over the shards that remained, eyeing the tendrils of black smoke as they writhed over the walls. "It's growing. Sophie's right. We can carry her. If we keep our backs to the castle we should be able to take whatever comes over the hills."

Sophie caught his eyes and nodded in approval. She thrust her breadknife through the waistband of her apron and knelt down in front of Calcifer. "Let me take you with us. I saw Howl do it. Didn't look too hard at all."

He crawled up his pile of logs with obvious effort and shook his head. "No. You go on. I'm not any safer inside or outside." He let the castle drop with a jarring crash that sent Markl and Sora reeling and plates and bottles smashing to the floor. "Get out of here. I don't know how much longer I can hold this place together."

"Calcifer…" she began.

"The quicker you get out of here, the quicker you can help us," he whispered.

She swallowed hard and brushed the tears away with her sleeve, to help Sora and Kairi negotiate the window. It wasn't far off the ground now, and leaning heavily on Sora Kairi made it down without falling. The living scarecrow was waiting for them at the base of the castle, still wearing his incongruent grin. Markl grabbed a few last, precious items to stuff into his pockets and scrambled down under his own power. Sophie and Riku were last out, and she made a show of saying her goodbyes to Calcifer, so Riku was halfway down the treacherous pile of junk before Sophie swung her legs over the frame. She grabbed one of the network of exposed pipes and started pulling herself purposefully towards the top of the structure.

"Down, not up, Sophie!" Riku yelled, when he realized she wasn't descending alongside him.

"Howl's still down there, trying to protect the shop. I have to tell him we've gone. I'll be back soon!" she called in response, and kept climbing.

Riku stopped for a moment, shook his head, and started pulling himself back up the way he came, cresting the bulk of the castle just after Sophie did. "No. You won't," Riku said. It wasn't an order, but a statement of fact. The town was awash in flame. They could smell it, even this far up into the hills, not the comforting smell of pine logs on the hearth but something acrid and greasy that burned relentlessly and without mercy. The bombers still hung high over the rooftops, leisurely dispensing the death remaining in the holds above the reach of the fire and swarms of tiny black specks shrieking in mindless ecstasy.

Sophie ground her horror down between her teeth and didn't flinch from any of it. "I can bring him back. I've flown a hover before."

"Not through a war zone," Riku said.

"Don't you _dare_ try to stop me!" Sophie said, her voice nearly cracking into a shout. "I know you don't like Howl, but he matters to _me._"

"I'm not going to stop you," Riku said. He pulled himself up the last few feet to the narrow platform where they'd lashed the glider, and knelt to offer Sophie his hand. "I'm coming with you. I may not like the guy, but I know what he's going through."

Sophie nodded quickly, her eyes brimming with gratitude. "Thank you," she whispered breathlessly.

"Take care of Kairi and Markl, Sora!" Riku yelled down.

"That's a promise. We'll be waiting for you," Sora answered, his blade raised high above his head in a sort of half-salute.

Sophie drew the bread knife she brought for the purpose and started sawing away at the ropes restraining the nose of the craft. Riku summoned his Keyblade and began hacking away at the other end. Within a few minutes he'd kicked the last of it off and sat down in the pilot's seat. Sophie gave him a rundown of the controls, which were mercifully simple. "You ready?" he asked over his shoulder. Sophie nodded. "Good. Now _don't let go_." Riku punched the ignition and they shot into the air.

No matter what else their flaws, Ingary had good taste in airships. Their hover was light, fast, and highly maneuverable, and that was going to mean the difference between life and death once they reached the perimeter of the bombing. Riku took them in high into the cold air, above the flying Heartless, and hoped the bombers would be too preoccupied to gun down a two-person civilian ship that didn't boast so much as a squirtgun in the way of armament. Sophie rose from her seat, ever-so-carefully, and grabbed hold of the back of Riku's. She laid her left hand over his upper arm, steady her herself as well as she could. The ring on her finger flared and speared red through the smoke below them. "Follow it. It'll lead us to Howl."

Riku tracked the thin line through the cover of smoke and dove—in and out as quickly as possible was the only way they would survive this. A cloud of Heartless rose from the carcass of the town like flies, drawn relentlessly to the strongest heart. Riku banked hard and they overshot their prey, chattering in fury. Sophie's foot slipped from the sudden change in direction and she let out a clipped shriek, but held on. The ring's light was level with their flight now, but deeper in. They shot through a plume of smoke, and found themselves over the river…and Howl.

One of the Strangian bombers was listing badly, its bulbous body scraping the facades of the riverfront shops away into a shower of brick and plaster. A black shape was crouched on the rudder and slowly, purposely bending it with pure physical strength, the gashes of its claws plain on the deformed metal. A shudder ran through its body when it noticed the needle stream of light scan across its feathers. "Howl!" Sophie screamed as him as they shot by. "Come back with me! _HOWL_!" The face that looked up at her had ceased to be even remotely human some hours ago, and was now furred and muzzled like a starving wolf. Its wings unfurled and it thrust itself into the air.

The hover shot over a pedestrian bridge spanning the river, and Riku took them around again. The crippled bomber Howl left behind rammed into the supports of the bridge and wedged there. Its crew abandoned the collapsing wreck and streamed out into the boulevard. Scenting fresh meat, spatters of black slime surged up from the river and began clambering up the pylons. Their prey scattered, the soldiers panicking as their fellows were pulled down screaming and then rose again to join the ranks of the insatiable enemy. The Shadows were indiscriminate in their taste. They feasted on both sides, soldiers and civilians alike.

Riku looked up, sensing eyes on his back, and Sophie followed. A black shape with heavy feathered wings was pacing them from above. "Take us away from this, Riku, please!" she pleaded into his collar. He didn't need any convincing, and pulled up as sharply as he dared to bring them above the worst of the smoke.

But the downed airship was still gasping through the last of its death throes. There was a sudden shearing and cracking from below them, the sound of abused steel just giving up, and something inside ignited with explosive force. Even given the distance between their hover and the ground, the shockwave was harrowing. It tipped the aft end up and around in a dizzying corkscrew. Riku's stomach slammed into the steering column, and instinct just barely allowed him hook his right arm around the post and the fingers of his left on the guardrail as the ship spun down through the smoke. Sophie did not possess a warrior's reflexes and wasn't nearly so lucky. She almost caught the back of Riku's seat when she landed against it but couldn't hold on, and fell screaming as her fingers brushed the burnished brass and then passed it by.

A bare fifty feet above the highest of the town's weathervanes, the little craft's stabilizers miraculously righted it again, the damaged wings buzzing and shuddering in disharmony. Riku called his dark shield directly below Sophie, still hanging precariously by one bruised hand from the guardrail. He pushed himself back in front of the wheel and thrust the dragonfly down. Her silver hair had come loose from its braid and was splashed over the shimmering net like spilled mercury. Her eyes were closed and her limbs were motionless, and Riku could only hope that she hadn't landed wrong and broken her neck.

The shields were fragile things, and sucked at his concentration like leeches. He couldn't hold one for more than a few seconds, and when the edges began to crackle and fade he called another a foot below the first. Sophie stirred from the second impact and pushed herself up, groggy but not seriously hurt, and called something out to him. Whatever it was he couldn't make it out; the explosion had muffled his hearing in a dense ringing fog. Splitting his concentration between maintaining the shield, piloting the hover, and watching for attack was a risky thing to do—there wasn't enough of it to go around, but Riku had no choice. The Heartless below _woul_d get wind of his heart again; it was not a possibility but a certainty.

He had almost wrestled the damaged hover level with Sophie when that certainty became a reality. His ears didn't warn him in time to dive. Clammy fingers raked his back and tangled in his hair, and their icy touch momentarily broke his mental hold on the shield. Sophie screamed again as her hands tore through what had just been a solid surface and she went tumbling toward the street. He couldn't spare her enough of his attention to renew the shield with the Heartless trying to tear a hole through his ribcage, and realized with sudden, perfect clarity that there was _nothing_ he could do to save her.

Nevertheless, something did. Howl had folded his wings and plummeted through the choking air like a hawk after a sparrow, but this dive saved a life instead of ending it. Her fall was arrested before he even reached her, and her dress folded gently under her after her feet planted themselves solidly on absolutely nothing. The dark shape scooped her up into the night and disappeared.

Riku renewed his efforts to peel the Heartless off before any more caught up to him. Its spindly arms were stronger than they had any right to be, and it had already bitten him more than once. Finally, he loosened its grip enough that he could make a ruthless grab for the delicate wings, which he tore off with his bare hands. It shrieked in pain and its grip slackened even further, giving Riku the opening he needed to dig his fingers into its soft, newly flightless body and toss its aside. The first two fingers of his left hand were slick with blood and wouldn't grasp the wheel like they should have. He shoved the pain away, a distraction to be dealt with later, and awkwardly turned the hover after Howl and Sophie.


	15. Chapter 15

The Castle had all but disintegrated. The ground was littered with its remains, and Sora, Kairi and Markl had put their backs to the most massive piece, the iron prow that had once served it for an approximation of a face. Sora's Keyblade shone as brilliantly as ever, but his knuckles were bloodied and his shirt muddy and torn. The hills were seething with Heartless drawn to the carnage in the valley, clambering over the wreck of the Castle almost faster than Sora could swat them back. There were too many; not a stroke could be wasted. His Keyblade was a scythe through their ranks, but still, as the minutes crawled by, he was being pushed further and further down. Any ground he gained was lost almost immediately.

The deadlier ones were coming over the ridges now—the shades of bears, wolves, and wildcats, twisted and huge, flanked by the lanky shapes of Neo-shadows loping along beside them. His heart twisted. He hated fighting alone. One partner would do but two was best—a pyramid, three points forming the strongest base and the most difficult to topple. With three there was give and take, compensation for each weakness or false step from both sides. He looked back for one precious moment. Kairi was still slumped against the wall of rusty iron with her arm around Markl, and the scarecrow standing silent guard in front of her, as if the hordes of Darkness were as harmless and easily frightened as a flock of starlings.

The first wolf crested the wreck and Sora rose to meet it. His blade flashed twice in the moonlight and it disappeared, but its packmates followed, snarling mindlessly. Sora was blindingly fast, but there were too many, even for him, and even as quickly as his blade leapt from one body to the next, it couldn't be everywhere at once. The Heartless were flowing in like a swift tide, threatening to sweep him off his feet to join the current. To admit such a thing ran utterly counter to his nature, but he was, without a doubt, slowly and surely losing this battle.

He stabbed the last of the wolf pack in the throat as it leapt at him, but that brief burst of triumph was almost immediately swatted aside by an enormous paw belonging to something too grotesque to even identify. He stumbled, nearly knocked off his feet, and when he looked up, the single shape seemed to become two. Sora shook his head to clear it of the daze of the sudden blow, but the double vision persisted, and when one monster reared he realized there was nothing at all wrong with his eyes. Whatever the spined, toothy, frighteningly large creature was, there were two of them.

Helpless to stop them, a few of the smaller Heartless darted forward, skirting the radius of his Keyblade's reach. Markl whimpered in terror as they bore down on him, but instead of cowering in the false safety of Kairi's arms he shook them off and produced a jeweled dagger from beneath his cloak. He didn't hold it right, clutching it in front of him with both hands as if it was a sword, but managed to plunge it into one of his enemies anyway, which exploded in a shower of slime. He swung at another and dispatched it, too, with the dagger's powerful enchantment, but the second of the larger beasts, content to leave Sora's heart to the first, began to advance on Kairi.

Sora called out a useless warning to her and Markl. He tried desperately to keep himself between them and the two largest Heartless, but his own opponent was simply too dangerous to allow him the luxury of giving it anything less than his undivided attention. He may have been able to take them both down, on the battleground of his choice and on his own terms, but there was no way he could protect _her_ while doing it. The broken promise soured on his tongue.

Kairi watched the scene unfold in front of her, and made her _own_ decision. With her hands wedged into the wreckage she pulled herself up on legs that seemed as solid as wisps of straw, the sky spinning above her head. She was grateful for Sora's protection, but she would never let herself be rendered helpless ever again, not matter what the circumstances. She had made her own vows, to _herself_, a long time ago. The Heartless advanced. The poor scarecrow planted himself in front of her, and even succeeded in impaling one of the small Shadows on his stake as it rose from the earth, but the bigger, uglier Heartless punched it effortlessly into the wall of metal. With a crack like a broken bone his support pole snapped in two and showered her with splinters of wood.

The Heartless reached next for Markl. He dropped his dagger in the grass, the burst of desperate courage fled. She called his name, for him to run, anything, to break the paralyzing gaze of those massive eyes, to no avail. At the last moment she reached out pulled him sharply to the ground by the hood of his cloak, so the monstrous fist closed around her instead. Sora saw it out of the corner of his eye and screamed her name, again and again, but the distraction only won him a sharp blow to the shoulder from the other beast that sent him sprawling. He couldn't turn his back to it again.

The Heartless lifted her in one fist on level with its lolling tongue. It sniffed at her hair, savoring the delectable morsel in its grip. Kairi raised her shaking arm until her fingers almost brushed its teeth and called out to her blade, which appeared obediently in her fist, and coincidently right through what passed for the thing's brain. She put both hands on the hilt and pulled as hard as she could. The Heartless convulsed once and dropped her when its arms melted, and she landed on her hands and knees in the dirt, too dizzy with shock and the unexpected success to rise again.

-ooo-

It wasn't far back to what was left of the Castle, but the bobbing marker of the hover's fuel gauge had dipped deep below the splash of red paint across the bottom fifth of the tube. Riku was just cresting the last of the stone walls separating the grazing land from the wilderness when the wings finally buzzed their last and locked into place. He swore at them, which did nothing, and pounded on the ignition switch, which did the same. The craft began its inexorable arcing descent into the hillside, coming in too high and too fast to even attempt a landing. But he did have a parachute, of a crude and improvisational sort, and using it was the only way he was likely to hit the ground and still be able to get up to fight again. Riku stood, nudged the rudder to aim for a long stretch of grass relatively free of boulders and debris, cast the spell, and jumped.

The air kicked into a whirlwind around him at his command, tempering what would probably have been a bone-breaking fall into an only bruising one. He hit the grass and rolled with the impact, finally coming to rest in a patch of wilting wildflowers beside the Castle. There was no time to surrender to the sting of a new layer of cuts and bruises; the Heartless on the ground converged on him almost immediately. He struggled to his feet and used the last of his magic to mend the bloody mess the Heartless in town had made of his left hand, so he could at least hold his blade. He heard Sora's voice on the other side of the mountain of debris and fought his way around to it. There was no time for a joyful reunion, just a quick glance and half a smile to reassure the other they were both still alive. Riku wasted no time in helping Sora dispatch the largest Heartless snarling for their blood. Against the two of them, it fell quickly.

When the field had been temporarily cleared, Howl circled once and alighted in front of them. His arms went slack and Sophie slipped to the ground, but didn't run from his monstrous visage. She took up two handfuls of black feathers and stayed resolutely curled against his chest. Every Heartless around them turned to him and stilled, as if awaiting a command. The hills went suddenly and eerily quiet, and their panting breaths rushed in their ears like a windstorm. Howl's wings rustled in indecision, the only external sign of the internal battle.

Riku didn't see how it could be anything but lost. He couldn't glimpse _any_ humanity in the black wings, the filthy talons, or the animal eyes. Allowing the Darkness to flow through you unchecked warped the body and heart together, and it was a painful transformation, which only pushed the afflicted heart down deeper into a pit from which it was unlikely to escape. Guilt and despair were particularly insidious manifestations, since they often stemmed from an honest desire to do good, and were suffered through in a private silence, far from the people who had the power to pull you back.

But even under the dark feathers and crippling desperation, a dim, weak light must still have been shining—Sophie was still alive and unharmed. It was her gentle voice that broke though the shell of silence, and it carried, although it was meant for Howl's ears. "I don't care what you are outside, or what you were hiding inside," she began. The creature growled deep in its chest and raised its hand, with talons that could crush her skull, but Sophie only held on tighter. "I knew from the moment I met you that I never had anything to fear. You told me once you were a coward," she said, and laughed, although it almost came out a sob, "and I think that makes you a liar, too, because you fought through it _every day _to help the people who tore your old life from you, and the country that forced you into exile. You may have failed them once, but that was a long time ago, but you can't let that burden weigh you down so much it takes your life, too. Even if no one else ever learns how selfless and kind you are, I'll know. I'll remember, because I…" And her voice faded gently away into the night, too quiet for anyone but Howl to hear. His arm shook with uncertainly and then dropped with unexpected delicacy across her shoulders.

A gust of wind whipped into the stagnant air and swept a cloud of feathers into the night, and when it died down only Howl, in his true human skin, remained. His legs gave out under him, either from exhaustion or relief or both, and Sophie caught his arm to ease him down. Whatever curse she had been held under fell away completely, with one oddly fitting exception. Her hands were smooth and slender and her face unlined, and all that remained of it was the river of silvery hair that had been let loose from the braid that had always bound it up. "I know how to help you," she said softly, against Howl's temple, glancing uneasily about at the remaining Heartless, who had begun to hiss and shuffle closer. "But first you need to help them." He nodded. Sophie let go of his arms, reluctantly, and rose and backed away from the ring of black shapes, one step, then two, and turned to sprint back to the last room of the house left intact.

Howl pushed himself to his feet, unaided, and extended his arms, palms out and fingers taut. Hunks of debris came suddenly to life, tumbling over the grasses to crush the Heartless that suddenly charged them. Sora slid his feet back into a fighting stance, and Riku did the same. Howl did not step back from the line, as they'd both expected him to. Instead he raised his hand high above his head and snapped his fingers once, which sparked like flint striking flint. The glint of light rose above their heads, and grew, brilliantly, until it came to bob gently above the scene, gleaming so brightly they were all momentarily blinded. The Heartless had the worst of it, though, hissing and shying from the false sun.

The radiance of the spell breathed new strength into two pairs of tired hands, and Riku and Sora fell with a vengeance on the remaining Heartless, who stumbled stupidly about in the unnatural light, dazed and half-blinded. Their numbers dwindled until Sora swung his last stroke, and the single remaining Heartless in the vicinity crumpled into nothing.

It was gaining on midnight when they could finally, _finally_ dismiss their Keyblades. A steady rain had begun to fall, turning the ground to mud and the fires in the valley below to damp ash and steam. The globe of light Howl conjured into being hissed and spit in the wet, and then folded in on itself with a little pop and disappeared. The danger gone, Howl finally let exhaustion overtake him completely. He collapsed against a pile of debris with enough of an overhang to shield him from the rain, and closed eyes that probably hadn't seen real sleep in days. Sora and Riku took that as their cue to see to Kairi. She was lying in the dirt with her head in Markl's lap, wrapped in his small cloak, painfully exhausted but still conscious.

"She saved my life," Markl said to them. "If I don't see you again, can you tell her thanks, when she's well enough to remember?"

"Of course we will," Sora answered, and lifted Kairi up little with an arm beneath her neck. Markl smiled in thanks and wandered over to the tiny patch of dry ground next to his master. He dropped down next to Howl with a sigh.

Riku lifted her up and carried her to a spot as hidden from the wind and rain as he could find. They were together again and safe for the night, but the reunion was tainted by the specter of their unfulfilled duty. This world was dying, and they'd seen it with their own eyes. As long as the fighting continued, the Heartless would thrive, and the same scene they had just witnessed had undoubtedly been played out in identical little towns from one edge of the country to another. Although they believed they had cunningly turned the knife against their attackers, Ingary had in fact slipped in between its own ribs.

Kairi was shivering uncontrollably under Markl's inadequate cloak. Riku encircled her more tightly in his arms, to lend her whatever warmth he could, and Sora did the same. Whatever happened tonight, she would be out of the fight, and salvaging what was left of the world would be all that much more difficult. She needed a warm bed and the attention of a real physician, not half-remembered first aid training and their severely depleted supply of magical stopgaps. Sora brushed a lock of hair out of her face. Even he couldn't scrape together enough hope to reassure them all it would turn out right, this time.

There was a crash and a yelp from above their heads, and whatever Calcifer had managed to hold together collapsed in on itself. Sora bolted up to save Sophie from a nasty fall as she half climbed and half slid down the disintegrating face of the castle with a red glow clutched to her chest.

"You okay?" Sora asked, when the pile of debris had finally finished shifting.

Sophie nodded, but Calcifer answered with a vociferous: "No, careful!", and whimpered. "Sooooophie, it's raining, I'm going to go out!" the star whined in a small voice, from in between her fingers. She was cradling his body against her dress like a newborn kitten, and if the flames licking her hands burned them, she didn't show it.

Sophie opened the hand she was using to shield him from the drops and held him up to eye level. "Oh hush, you baby," she chided. "If you've survived this much, a little drizzle won't be the end of you." She knelt down next to Howl, who wearily opened his eyes when he heard her footfalls. "What do I do now?" she asked. "Do you think…will Calcifer be all right?"

Howl shrugged. "Honestly…I don't know."

"You'll both be fine," Sora said, with reassuring authority. "Hearts are different than anything else. Even if you divide them into pieces, you still don't end up with any less in the end." He glanced over his shoulder at Kairi, nestled in Riku's arms. "And her and me are proof. Go on, Sophie."

She kissed Howl quickly on the cheek, then exhaled to steady her nerves. She pressed Calcifer up against his chest, against his flesh-and-blood heart, since it seemed somehow fitting. The flickering light soaked through his shirt and disappeared. For a moment, nothing happened. Then Howl jerked forward against Sophie's arms and gasped in fleeting pain. Markl looked stricken, afraid something had gone terribly wrong, but relaxed again the grimace on Howl's faced unknotted itself.

A rainbow of sparks burst from around Sophie's hands. They coalesced in front of her into a dancing ball of light, which yelled, in Calcifer's voice, "I'm alive! And free! I'm freeeeee!" The sound of his jubilant voice faded into the sky with the retreating pinprick of light.

Howl coughed. "I feel terrible," he announced.

"Enjoy it," Sora said. "As far as I know, you're one of only three people in the whole Multiiverse to get a second chance at feeling _anything_ after losing your heart."

"You're really going to be okay now?" Markl asked from Howl's elbow, and he nodded in response. They gazed at each other for a moment, at least until Markl threw his arms around Howl's chest and began to dampen the front of his shirt with tears of unabashed joy. "Your advice about love stinks, Master Howl," he muttered through them. "I don't care if it's against wizard rules or not—Sophie's _staying_."

Howl looked unsure of himself for a moment, and about what to do with a little boy sniffling his elation into his collar. He decided on patting him clumsily on the back, which seemed to be the correct response, since Markl hugged him tighter. "Agreed, Markl. I've never been much good at following rules anyway."

Sophie didn't say anything. She didn't have to. She grinned wide and embraced him so enthusiastically he almost toppled over. Sora got up to give them a little privacy about when Howl gasped out something about not being able to breathe.

"Are we all in one piece over there?" Riku called out sarcastically.

Sora shuffled over to answer the question. "Yeah. I think—" he began, but his face fell when he noticed what was left of the scarecrow lying in a dejected heap in the mud. He scooped it up in his arms and crouched down in front of Kairi and Riku. "Even if he wasn't a real person, he got all smashed up trying to protect Kairi. Maybe we can fix him up with a new pole when this is all over. I think he deserves it."

"Mmm-hmm," Kairi agreed, and pushed herself up a little straighter to address what was left of it, although it hadn't so much as twitched and the animating spell looked like it had dissipated. "You were braver than a lot of _people_ I've met. Thanks," she said, and on the spur of the moment, planted a kiss of gratitude on its cheek.

It twitched. Then it twitched again. _Then _it wrenched itself from Sora's light grip so violently it flew several feet into the air, and landed, improbably, on the stub of its pole and balanced there. The sticks supporting the tattered suit went slack like overcooked noodles and puffed out again as the clothes filled out with the outline of human limbs. The perpetual grin on its face was subsumed into a look of slackjawed amazement on the face of a young man with dirty blond curls, who stumbled backward and fell on legs it seemed he'd forgotten how to use. He pushed himself up again, staring with fascination at his hands. "I've got _fingers_ again!" he announced in delight. "Fingers! And…oh…where are my manners." He stood and bowed to Kairi, a little unsteadily. "My name is Stephen, and I would like to thank you from the bottom of my heart. I was sure I'd be stuck a scarecrow forever."

Howl pushed himself to his feet, with Sophie's help, to inspect this unexpected turn of events. "Stephen," he called out. "Is it too much to hope that's as in the lost-and-presumed-dead Crown Prince Stephen of the Kingdom of Strangia?"

The blond man nodded, and brushed some mud from his jacket, shifting uncomfortably on his bare feet. "Not feeling very princely at the moment, but yes." He sucked in his lower lip, looking ashamed. "Those are my father's warships down in the valley, aren't they."

"Yes," Howl answered evenly.

The prince sighed. "He's made a terrible mess of things, and I'm half to blame—I'm so sorry," he said, the look of shame lingering especially long on Kairi and Howl. "I went off without my retinue tracking a stag in the Waste and slipped on a patch of loose gravel. I wasn't even badly hurt, but the Witch of the Waste found me before my servants did, posing as the kind of nubile virgin shepherdess one only finds in the shoddiest of adventure novels."

"Eugh," Sophie added, her whole face souring in disgust. "I take it you turned her down."

"Yes, of course. And for being an honorable man she cursed me with the body of a scarecrow, never to return to my human shape until kissed by a princess of the purest heart." He looked fondly down at Kairi. "I had almost despaired, since what were the odds of finding a girl like that in the middle of the wilderness?"

"Vanishingly small," Howl supplied, looking almost cheerful. "Now, as intriguing as this twist of fate is…we still have other problems to attend to. Markl?" Howl asked, looking out at the bombers still hovering over the town. "Would you be so kind as to pull a broom handle, some rope, and a white sheet out of that junkpile?"

"The dragonfly is out of juice," Riku said, immediately grasping Howl's plan. "And a wreck. When the fuel gave out I sort of crashed it into a hill."

"If Calcifer were still here I'm sure he could manage to put that little thing back together," Sophie said wistfully. "He lugged the Castle around for us, after all, with barely a word of thanks."

"I _looooove_ being appreciated," called a voice from high above their heads. Every face turned up to look at it. The white glow drifted slowly down to settle in Howl's outstretched palm. When it met his fingers, the tiny star folded up its gleaming rays and promptly caught itself on fire. Calcifer blinked at Howl, looking both sheepish and oddly, deeply affectionate.

"I was hoping you'd be up to one more run," Howl said.

"I am," he replied. "More than one, even. I thought I'd go out and see the world with my newfound freedom and everything, but," he coughed. "It's still sort of raining."

"Thank you, Calcifer," Howl said. "For this…and everything else."

Calcifer grinned and zipped over grass to disappear into the wreck of the dragonfly. There was some metallic clanking and grinding, and the sound of bent steel torturously assuming its original shape. The craft drifted over to them and set down at Howl's feet, in perfect silence. The wings were no longer actually _moving_, but that didn't seem to impede its airworthiness in the slightest. Markl returned with a length of wood, some rope, and their large impromptu truce flag, which was quickly lashed to the back.

"I'll send a transport with a medical team back to pick you up," Prince Stephen promised. "And see to it she receives the best care the crown has to offer."

"Good luck, and thank you," Sora said. "I've gotta say I was worried for a while, but I think Strangia's going to be in good hands from now on."

At Howl's command Calcifer lifted the tiny ship into the air, and they disappeared into the billowing smoke and steam. Perhaps half an hour passed, and as they watched, the heavy bombers peeled off from their runs and one by one rose into the clouds, save for the largest, which spat out a smaller ship from its belly and flew towards them. Its guns lit up, but the rain of bullets fell in a wide circle around the patch of debris that marked their position, to shred any straggling Heartless. When the smaller one alighted, a soldier with a red cross emblazoned on each sleeve threw open the side door and waved them inside over the hum of the engines.


	16. Chapter 16

The armistice was signed a few days later, in Ingary's royal palace and without ceremony, for neither side had actually expected Prince Stephen to appear, much less stride up to the bridge of Strangia's flagship and demand his father and councilors write one out then and there. Every single statesman in attendance looked faintly embarrassed at the whole thing and wouldn't look either the Prince or Howl in the face. Riku and Sora had been thoroughly scrubbed down and done up in very expensive suits to attend as well, and took the opportunity to scold (as politely as possible) the attending national leaders for their flagrant disregard for human life in pursuit of petty vanity. The story of Radiant Garden's fall was told and retold again, and although Madame Suliman was conspicuous in her absence, her subordinates, as well as both kings and especially Prince Stephen, seemed to take their words to heart.

Following the signing, and much to Howl's gratification and the surprise of all the _deeply_ mortified court wizards, the curse of silence concerning Ingary's experiments with the Heartless in Greyslake was mysteriously lifted. Howl related every detail he knew once the Strangian contigent excused themselves, and Sora and Riku were both pleased to discover his Majesty was appropriately horrified by every word. The King, it seemed, really had been ignorant of the whole affair, and when he summoned his chief sorceress to explain herself she was nowhere to be found. Investigatory committees were formed, chairmen appointed, and all charges against Howl immediately dropped.

After all the speeches were delivered, the awards bestowed, the testimony given, and the affidavits signed, Sora and Riku were ever-so-graciously prodded off the stage. They gratefully sank out of the stuffiness of palace to Kairi's spacious sickroom, which had become the de facto retreat from the stench of politics. Politicians were among the very few classes of people Sora didn't really care to talk to, since they never meant what they said nor said what they meant. Riku, justly believing he had done his part in unraveling the whole mess, was content to be ignored by the palace dignitaries and mistaken for Sophie's brother, since her hair still stubbornly refused to warm to the chocolate brown she claimed it ought to be. Sophie didn't have a speck of useful information to add to the investigations either, so she had claimed the role of nurse for Kairi and turned out to be quite good at it.

Kairi still tired too easily to do much of anything but lie in bed and talk, so that was precisely what the two girls did. Sophie considered her life until she met Howl too dull to share, so many of their conversations instead revolved around courageous young men with dangerously exploitable self-esteem issues. She listened _very_ carefully to Kairi's expertise in this area. Howl seemed to be thriving in the glow of adoration at the palace, but despair penetrating enough to turn a man's heart to Darkness did not simply evaporate overnight. Kairi didn't delve too deeply into the grisly personal details out of respect for Riku's privacy, but made sure her new friend understood how much work it took to pull out enough of the insidious thorns for Riku to have something approaching a mentally balanced outlook on life. Sophie didn't balk at accepting the challenge.

-ooo-

At the end of the week Aerith and Leon arrived with a party from Radiant Garden to take over the tedious process of negotiating a ban on the experiments in Darkness, reparations to Ingary, and other deadly boring, as opposed to just deadly, matters of importance in the continuing peace of the Multiverse. The negotiations were in recess, and the two of them had returned to Kairi's room to report on their progress (and lack of) to the three Keyblades masters, who had declined the invitations to attend.

Aerith had taken the opportunity of an interplanetary diplomatic mission to bully Leon into a long-overdue haircut. He was wearing a very elegant black uniform with gold trim and blindingly shiny boots none of them had ever seen before in their lives. He looked very competent, commanding, and almost stately, although the effect was ruined when he immediately unzipped his jacket and assumed his characteristic arms-crossed slouch against the dressing table. "I hate dress uniforms," he announced, annoyance dripping from every syllable. "And diplomatic conferences. _Especially_ diplomatic conferences about disarmament treaties."

Aerith arranged herself on the divan in the corner, with her legs stretched out and crossed at the ankle in front of her. She paused the lazy back-and-forth motion of her hand fan to answer. "Try a corset and high heels, Leon, if you really want to understand suffering," she said tartly, since she was currently wearing both, in her concession to Ingary's formal dress code for ladies of refinement.

Kairi slapped a hand against her mouth, but the giggle escaped through her nose in a sort of stifled snort. Riku and Sora squashed down the discomforting mental image with identical winces. "It's going that bad, huh?" Sora asked.

"Um-hm," Aerith answered, and closed the fan with a snap. "Both sides are dead tired of fighting over nothing, but Ingary doesn't want to stop their use of Heartless in the military until Strangia agrees to dismantle most of their air force bases on the southern border, which they don't want to do because Ingary uses Heartless in their military, and blah, blah, blah, etc., etc. here we go again."

"That sounds like a merry-go-round of _fun_," Riku said, now more grateful than ever nobody really seemed to want two slightly scruffy, unmannered teenagers at the disarmament talks, no matter how pivotal their role had been in bringing them about.

"Right," Leon said, shaking his head in exasperation. "You know why Radiant Garden's government works as well as it does? Because the people running it aren't _politicians._ These people…their mouths move, sound comes out, and nobody actually _says _anything for hours at a stretch. Some days I almost wish—"

"Well I don't," Aerith interrupted him, looking slightly brittle. "I like going to bed at night knowing with reasonable certainty my friends are still going to be alive when I wake up. That is worth any number of pig-faced, blowhard Defense Ministers the Multiverse can throw at us. Complaints aside, our time doing the fighting is over."

"I'm not that old! I only turned thirty last month!" Leon objected.

"I didn't say you were old. _You _said you were old," Aerith commented with a smirk. "And what I _meant_ was that we can't drop our responsibilities to the people who depend on us to go Heartless-slaying on a whim. We have a planet to run. Those three don't," she said, and gestured with her fan at the three Keyblade masters sprawled in an untidy pile on the large bed.

"Speaking of responsibility…what happened to Madame Suliman? Isn't there going to be a trial? Or _something_?" Kairi asked.

"According to Howl she's mysteriously disappeared, along with a handful of other high-ranking sorcerers and military officials he assumes were intimately involved in the Greyslake massacre," Leon said. "Most everyone left is busy denying knowledge of her activities 'til they're blue in the face."

"That's disgusting," Kairi added.

"That's politics," Leon answered. "Although she _was_ considerate enough to seal her personal laboratories before skipping town." He pulled a square of paper from an inner pocket of his jacket and held it out to Sora. "Addressed to you and Kairi. She melted the keys to slag. Seems she didn't want anyone inside but a Keyblade master and anyone they could personally vouch for. Howl asked us to take anything we or the King might find useful and burn the rest."

"We'll get on that," Sora assured him. "I can't _wait _to drop a match on that pile of—"

There was a brisk knock on the door, and it opened a crack to admit the voice of one of the ubiquitous pageboys. "The session is reconvening shortly, Sir and Madam Ambassadors," he said, and withdrew when his message was testily acknowledged by Leon.

Aerith smoothed out her dress and blinked pointedly at Leon until his shirt had been retucked and his jacket rezipped _all_ the way up to the collar. "Well…shall we dance?"

"Have I got a _choice?"_ he asked, but opened the door for her anyway.

When they left, Sora broke the unadorned blob of wax sealing the scrap of paper and unfolded it. It read:

_I've wronged you, and Howl, and this kingdom and the world. I am sorry. Sorcerers live their lives in fear, and I let it overtake my reason. There is no excuse for what I've done. _

_If he hasn't done so already, advise His Majesty to clear Howl of all charges, and offer him a permanent post in the Court, though I doubt he'll take it. He was always my most promising student, and now it seems he has finally grown wiser than his master._

He passed the note to Kairi, who skimmed through it with Riku looking over her shoulder. "I knew it," she said, but didn't sound triumphant her opinion of Madame Suliman had been vindicated.

"We should start clearing out the lab pretty soon," Riku said. "Before anybody starts getting _ideas_."

Kairi shook her head and exhaled luxuriously into the goosedown pillows. "The stuff isn't going anywhere, and from the looks of things the negotiations are going to drag on for a while. Besides, I'm not supposed to get out of bed yet. Doctor's orders, on account of my delicate female constitution."

"You flash-fried a dozen Heartless after being _stabbed in the belly and falling off a roof,_" Riku pointed out.

Kairi shrugged. "It's still a perfectly good excuse. We have some time to breathe for a while. Just enjoy it—I'm going to. Pass the bonbons, would you, Sora?"

Sora got up to grab the box off the table and deposited it on Kairi's lap. Each piece was a work of art, and several were even dusted with gold. Kairi had made pretty decent inroads into the box already. Sora took one with a cherry drawn on it in a thin ribbon of chocolate and popped it in his mouth. It was a startlingly good distraction from the unpleasantness of the past two weeks, and coincidentally the closest thing to an orgasm one could have by stimulating the tastebuds alone. "Dude," Sora said, sucking chocolate off his teeth, "you have _got _to try these." He riffled around in the box for another one, and chose a long thin one dipped in crushed hazelnuts. Inspiration struck. He snuggled closer against Kairi on the bed and made kissy noises at her around the stick of chocolate. She quickly got the hint and nibbled off her half, which ended in a deliciously chocolately kiss.

"Ow, my teeth," Riku said, completely deadpan. "Does the Disney Castle health plan offer dental?"

"It's okay, Riku," Sora said comfortingly, reaching over Kairi to pat his leg. "We know you only act like a jerkwad because you care. There's another one. Want a kiss?"

For a second he was going to refuse, since he was one of the very few people in the Multiverse that found most chocolate to be inedibly sweet, and unlike Sora and Kairi preferred something with more bite behind it. Then he saw one lone, dark, slightly symbolic square stuck in the corner. He plucked it from the box, tucked it between Sora's lips, and kissed away his half with pleasure.

Sora wrinkled his nose when he pulled away—not because of the kiss, of course, but Riku's taste in candy. "That's so _bitter_!" he said, quickly selecting another one to balance out the taste. "How can you eat those?"

"Cause I'm not a chocolate wuss," Riku said, leaning back on one of the many pillows with his hands tucked behind his head. "Where did those come from, anyway, Kairi?"

"Prince Stephen," Kairi answered. "He vowed to keep me supplied in chocolate 'til we left. After asking for my hand in marriage. I—don't_ look_ at me like that, Riku! Now swallow, breathe…right. Good. Of course I said no, are you kidding?"

Riku sat up and cleared his throat, since Kairi's offhanded comment had nearly forced the last of the chocolate down completely the wrong tube. "You're sure popular around here."

"She is pretty hot, Riku," Sora pointed out. "Hey Kairi, have I ever told you you're hot?"

Kairi paused to consider this, and grinned. "Not that I remember. And don't worry about Prince Stephen, really. I think he did it out of politeness more than anything else. Since I broke his curse, and he's a prince, and I'm a princess—the whole fairytale deal, you know—I think he felt sort of obligated. Worked for Belle, but come _on_. He seemed downright relieved when I turned him down."

"Lucky us," Riku said.

"We really are," Sora said. Somehow it came out in a more contemplative tone than he'd intended.

"Amazingly, staggeringly, impossibly lucky," Riku agreed. "In more ways than one."

"See? I _told _you saving the world was—" Sora began, but rest of his sentence was buried under a sudden faceful of down and silk pillowcase, courtesy of Riku.

Kairi tossed the pillow back in Riku's direction. "So…one down, a whole skyful left to go?" Kairi asked.

"Would you have it any other way?" Riku asked.


End file.
